Armenia and Azerbaijan to Hold Peace Settlement Talks in Washington on Sunday

File photo: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (C) meets with an Armenian delegation including Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (L) and a delegation with Azerbaijan including Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in New York, New York, US, 19 September 2022. (EPA)
File photo: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (C) meets with an Armenian delegation including Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (L) and a delegation with Azerbaijan including Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in New York, New York, US, 19 September 2022. (EPA)
TT
20

Armenia and Azerbaijan to Hold Peace Settlement Talks in Washington on Sunday

File photo: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (C) meets with an Armenian delegation including Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (L) and a delegation with Azerbaijan including Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in New York, New York, US, 19 September 2022. (EPA)
File photo: US Secretary of State Antony Blinken (C) meets with an Armenian delegation including Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan (L) and a delegation with Azerbaijan including Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov in New York, New York, US, 19 September 2022. (EPA)

Armenia and Azerbaijan will hold a new round of talks in Washington on Sunday to try to normalize relations, the spokesperson of Armenia's Foreign Ministry said on Saturday.

Tensions have been rising again between the two countries over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh region, where Russian peacekeepers were deployed in 2020 to end a war, the second that Armenia and Azerbaijan have fought over the enclave since the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, Reuters said.

The mountain region is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan but populated mainly by ethnic Armenians.

"From April 30 Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Ararat Mirzoyan will be in Washington DC on a working visit. The next round of discussions on the agreement on normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan is scheduled," the spokesperson, Ani Badalyan, said on her official Facebook page.

There was no immediate confirmation of the meeting by Azerbaijan.

Despite years of attempted mediation between them, Armenia and Azerbaijan have yet to reach a peace agreement that would settle outstanding issues such as the demarcation of borders and return of prisoners.

Azerbaijan set up a new checkpoint last Sunday on the road to Karabakh, the Lachin corridor, in a move that Armenia called a gross violation of a 2020 ceasefire.



King Charles Marks Air India Tragedy with Moment of Silence during Birthday Parade

Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla ride in a carriage, as part of the Trooping the Color parade to honor Britain's King Charles on his official birthday in London, Britain, June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Toby Melville
Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla ride in a carriage, as part of the Trooping the Color parade to honor Britain's King Charles on his official birthday in London, Britain, June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Toby Melville
TT
20

King Charles Marks Air India Tragedy with Moment of Silence during Birthday Parade

Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla ride in a carriage, as part of the Trooping the Color parade to honor Britain's King Charles on his official birthday in London, Britain, June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Toby Melville
Britain's King Charles and Queen Camilla ride in a carriage, as part of the Trooping the Color parade to honor Britain's King Charles on his official birthday in London, Britain, June 14, 2025. REUTERS/Toby Melville

King Charles III and other members of the royal family in uniform wore black armbands and observed a moment of silence during his annual birthday parade Saturday as the monarch commemorated those who died in this week’s Air India plane crash.

Charles requested the symbolic moves “as a mark of respect for the lives lost, the families in mourning and all the communities affected by this awful tragedy,” Buckingham Palace said, according to The Associated Press.

An Air India flight from the northwestern city of Ahmedabad to London crashed shortly after takeoff on Thursday, killing 241 people on board and at least 29 on the ground. The plane was carrying 169 Indians, 53 Britons, seven Portuguese and one Canadian. One man survived.

In addition to being Britain’s head of state, Charles is the head of the Commonwealth, an organization of independent states that includes India and Canada.

The monarch’s annual birthday parade, known as Trooping the Color, is a historic ceremony filled with pageantry and military bands in which the king reviews his troops on Horse Guards Parade adjacent to St. James’ Park in central London.

The military ceremony dates back to a time when flags of the battalion, known as colors, were "trooped,'' or shown, to soldiers in the ranks so they could recognize them.

All members of the royal family in uniform wore black armbands. The moment of silence occurred while the king was on the dais after reviewing the troops.

Charles’ mother, Queen Elizabeth II, held a similar moment of silence in 2017 when Trooping the Color took place three days after a fire ripped through the Grenfell Tower apartment bloc in west London, killing 72 people.