BAKU. March 6 (Interfax) - Azerbaijan and Armenia have made significant progress in recent months on the path to normalizing bilateral relations, Senior Advisor to the United States Secretary of State for Caucasus Negotiations Louis Bono said.
He made this statement at a meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Monday, the U.S. embassy in Baku said.
"He noted the Secretary's [U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken] engagement [in the negotiation process] and significant progress the two sides have made over the last months," Bono said in a message posted on the embassy's Twitter account.
As reported earlier on Monday, Bono has arrived in Baku as he began a tour of South Caucasus countries.
Previously, U.S. State Department spokesperson Ned Price said Bono would visit Baku, Yerevan and Tbilisi this week, where he planned to meet with the top leadership of the three countries "to support the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process and our sustained commitment to Georgia's sovereignty and territorial integrity."
This is Bono's first visit to the region, which will allow for a continuation of the dialogue that took place between the U.S. secretary of state and the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference on February 18 of this year, he said.