This process has slightly different meaning, as it focused on United States’ active desire to invest in Crossroads of Peace: Prime Minister

Regarding U.S. involvement, we should take the following into account: as you know, when the Crossroads of Peace project was developed, we essentially proposed it to all our partners — meaning we invited them to invest within the framework of the Crossroads of Peace initiative. I must note that some of our partners had at least expressed interest in making investments in the project. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this during a press conference in Washington.

“But this year, from the start of President Trump’s administration, we sensed an active interest in the Crossroads of Peace project, and the American interest in investing in this program was clearly distinct. This entire process has been built specifically around the American interest in investing in the Crossroads of Peace project.

This is an important nuance, because it was not that we decided after Abu Dhabi — or in Abu Dhabi — that we could not negotiate in a bilateral format with Azerbaijan. Rather, this process has a somewhat different meaning, as it was focused on the United States’ active willingness to invest in the ‘Crossroads of Peace’ project. In this regard, I should note that the same proposal we currently have as a result of the Washington negotiations was, of course, also made to the Russian Federation and other partners. The reason we are here, in Washington, and this approach has been adopted, is that the United States was very active — President Trump was personally involved, his team was engaged, and importantly, we saw from the U.S. side a very active and genuine understanding of the principles we have set out in this matter — namely, the principles of territorial integrity, sovereignty, jurisdiction, and reciprocity. It is for these key reasons that this direction gained momentum and achieved success,” the Prime Minister said.

Earlier, it was reported that following a trilateral meeting in Washington, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, U.S. President Donald Trump, and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed a declaration related to Trump’s path to international prosperity and peace. The Prime Minister published the text of the declaration.