YEREVAN — The speaker of the U.S. Home of Representatives blamed Azerbaijan for the most recent outbreak of preventing with Armenia, as she made a high-profile journey to Yerevan in a public present of help.

Nancy Pelosi spoke on September 18, a day after arriving within the nation. She is the highest-ranking U.S. official to journey to Armenia because the nation gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.

Requested at a Yerevan information convention in regards to the newest spasm of preventing, which erupted final week, Pelosi mentioned her journey had explicit significance following the “unlawful and lethal assaults by Azerbaijan” on Armenia.

“We strongly condemn these assaults,” Pelosi mentioned, including that the border preventing was triggered by Azerbaijani assaults on Armenia.

“As for what Armenia expects [from the United States], we count on energetic help for [our] democracy, sovereignty, and territorial integrity in all potential instructions,” Alen Simonian, the speaker of Armenia’s parliament, advised the information convention.

WATCH: Nancy Pelosi laid flowers on September 18 at a Yerevan hilltop monument honoring the almost 1.5 million Armenians who died throughout World Struggle I in a marketing campaign of orchestrated violence by Ottoman Turks.

Azerbaijan condemned Pelosi’s remarks, calling them “unacceptable.”

“The unsubstantiated and unfair accusations leveled by Pelosi in opposition to Azerbaijan are unacceptable,” the Overseas Ministry mentioned in a assertion. “This can be a critical blow to the efforts to normalize relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“Such unilateral steps and baseless statements serve to not strengthen the delicate peace within the area, however to extend tensions,” the ministry mentioned.

Later, the U.S. State Division mentioned Secretary of State Antony Blinken had spoken with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and urged him “to stick to the cease-fire, disengage navy forces, and work to resolve all excellent points between Armenia and Azerbaijan via peaceable negotiations.”

The Azerbaijani press service mentioned that “the perimeters pressured the significance of strengthening the cease-fire, guaranteeing lasting peace and stability, and normalizing Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, together with persevering with talks on a peace treaty and opening transport corridors.” It mentioned the U.S. facet initiated the decision.

Earlier, forward of conferences with President Nikol Pashinian, Pelosi laid flowers at a Yerevan hilltop monument honoring the almost 1.5 million Armenians who died throughout World Struggle I in a marketing campaign of orchestrated violence by Ottoman Turks.

The killings have been categorised as genocide by a rising variety of historians, in addition to by the U.S. Congress, which unanimously handed genocide resolutions in 2019.

U.S. President Joe Biden additionally formally declared the killings to be genocide in April 2021.

“From america to Ukraine, Taiwan, Armenia, the world faces a selection between democracy and autocracy, and we should select democracy once more,” Pelosi mentioned in a publish on Twitter on the eve of her arrival.

The remarks have been a reference to different high-profile journeys she has made in latest months. In Could, she traveled to Kyiv to fulfill with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy amid his nation’s ongoing battle with Russia.

Final month, she traveled to Taiwan, a visit that was angrily denounced by China, which sees the island nation as a renegade province and has vowed to reunite it with mainland China.

Pelosi is from California, which is house to one of many largest ethnic Armenian communities in america. She was accompanied on her journey by Jackie Speier and Anna Eshoo, each California representatives who’ve Armenian heritage and who face reelection in November, and Consultant Frank Pallone (Democrat-New Jersey).

The delegation’s journey comes days after the worst violence in two years between Armenia and Azerbaijan, preventing that left greater than 200 useless on either side.

Since earlier than the Soviet breakup, the 2 sides have fought over a mountainous area known as Nagorno-Karabakh. Ethnic Armenian forces gained management of it in 1994. In 2020, nevertheless, Azerbaijan, which has spent years build up its armed forces, pushed Armenian forces out of a lot of the area and surrounding districts.

Within the newest spasm of violence, the 2 international locations traded artillery and mortars throughout their shared border, and Azerbaijani forces focused websites inside the borders of Armenia itself.

Russia, which maintains ties with each international locations, brokered a cease-fire not lengthy after the preventing erupted, however clashes continued.