U.S. State Department took note of Aliyev`s refusal to travel to  Granada

ArmInfo.The U.S. State Department took note of the fact that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev refused to participate in the proposed meeting in Granada. State Department spokesman Vedant Patel stated this during a briefing when asked to comment on the fact of Aliyev's refusal to meet with the Prime Minister of Armenia in Granada.

" We note that President Aliyev will not participate in the proposed  meeting in Granada.  And we've consistently been clear though that  dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan is essential to resolving  this longstanding conflict.  This is something that the Secretary and  others here continue to be deeply engaged on and we will continue to  work on this," the diplomat added.

At the same time, he avoided answering the question of whether the  USA plans to provide military assistance to Armenia, as France plans  to do, only once again emphasizing that Washington still believes  that dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan remains incredibly  important for finding a worthy and lasting peace in the South  Caucasus. "I have no change in posture to announce.  Again, we  continue to believe that dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan  continues to be incredibly important to finding a dignified and  durable peace for the South Caucasus.  It's why the Secretary has  engaged on this so personally, continuing to speak with counterparts  and interlocutors in both countries ," Patel said.

The diplomat also once again expressed concern about the situation  around Artsakh, in response to a request to talk about the purposes  of the meeting of representatives of Russia, the EU and the United  States in Turkey a few days before the Azerbaijani aggression against  Artsakh.

"This is a situation that we have continued to be deeply concerning  about.  I don't want to boil down on one specific moment.  But we're  of course concerned by the situation after the recent hostilities,  and it has resulted in over 100,000 ethnic Armenians fleeing the  Nagorno-Karabakh region into Armenia, and we're closely monitoring  the situation on the ground.  Of course, we continue to be concerned  and paying close attention to the humanitarian impacts.  That's why -  part of the reason why this meeting had been taking place ," he  concluded.

On October 5, a meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan  was supposed to take place in Granada with the mediation of the head  of the European Council, Charles Michel, however, on October 4, it  became known that Ilham Aliyev refused to go to this meeting. One of  the reasons is the refusal of Europe to confirm the participation of  the Turkish President in the meeting.