Blinken warned lawmakers Azerbaijan may soon invade Armenia: report

Secretary of State Antony Blinken last week informed a handful of lawmakers that his agency was concerned Azerbaijan may soon invade Armenia.

Blinken fielded questions from lawmakers about the prospects of such an attack and American means of dealing with such a development in an Oct. 3 phone call, Politico reported, citing anonymous sources.

Azerbaijan and Armenia fought a brief war in 2020 over the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh, also known as Artsakh to the now-former ethnic Armenian inhabitants. The area was home to Armenian Christians but became part of Azerbaijan under the Soviet Union. Following the breakup of that country, Armenia and Azerbaijan became independent and fought over the region.

The conflict was largely frozen for nearly thirty years, though Azerbaijan managed to decisively defeat Armenia in the 2020 conflict. Baku's forces overran the area last month and asserted military control over the breakaway territory. Almost the entire population fled to Armenia rather than live under the Azeri government.

The territorial dispute does not end there, however. Azerbaijan maintains territory west of Armenia known as the Nakhichevan exclave, to which the government of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev seeks to open a transit corridor through Armenia.

Aliyev has suggested he will forcibly implement the idea should Armenia refuse to cooperate.

Concerns over the prospective invasion may soon be placed on the State Department's backburner, however, as Blinken's phone call with lawmakers predated a major Hamas raid on Israeli territory that since has prompted a major counterstrike by the Israel Defense Forces on the Gaza Strip.

Ben Whedon is an editor and reporter for Just the News. Follow him on X, formerly Twitter.