Armenia and Azerbaijan are very much within the reach of an agreement.  Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in his closing remarks at the bilateral peace negotiation closing session with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov at the George Shultz National Foreign Affairs Training Center, on May 4.

“The two sides have discussed some very tough issues for the last few days and they made tangible progress on a durable peace agreement. I hope that they see and I believe they do as I do, that there is an agreement within sight, within reach and achieving that agreement would be not only historic but profoundly in the interest of the people in Azerbaijan and in Armenia and have very positive effects even beyond the two countries . I think the pace of the negotiations and the foundation that our colleagues have built shows that we are within reach of an agreement. The last mile of any marathon is always the hardest, we know that, but the US is here to continue to help both of our friends cross the finish line and as I said we are very much within the reach of that.

The leadership that we are seeing from both Armenia and Azerbaijan and from my friends -  the foreign ministers is inspiring. Not that this is easy but the commitment, the determination to move forward, to deal with the remaining challenging issues is real,” he said.