House Speaker Nancy Pelosi To Travel To Armenia Amid Border Tensions

Politico has reported that speaker of the United States House of Representatives Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) will travel to Armenia this week as violence continues around the disputed territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, reincorporated into Azerbaijan in 2020 after a long period under de facto Armenian rule. The current conflict has also flared up along the transit routes to the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan.

• Dave Brown at Politico: "Speaker Nancy Pelosi will travel to Armenia this weekend in a show of support for the country, which has been locked in a deadly fight with Azerbaijan."
• According to Politico, "Pelosi will make the journey accompanied by Rep. Jackie Speier (D-CA) after a stop in Berlin for the G-7 Speakers’ Summit. She’s expected to meet with Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Yerevan, the capital, as well as other government officials."
  • Pelosi's home state California has a prominent Armenian diaspora community which may have influenced the trip.
• Azerbaijan has a number of oil and gas pipelines which transit from Caspian oil and gas fields to Turkey and Europe. These pipelines generally avoid Nagorno-Karabakh and transit via Georgia but a significant increase in fighting could affect pipelines near the Azeri city of Ganja, as happened in 2020.
• Armenian and Azerbaijani sources report that up to 200 military personnel have been killed in skirmishes this week.
• Pelosi's office has declined to comment on the trip: “We don’t confirm or deny international travel in advance due to longstanding security protocols.”