Vance was greeted with a red carpet, an honor guard and an official delegation before he was driven to a meeting with Armenia's Prime Minister?Nikol Pashinyan.

Speaking to reporters before the meeting, Vance said, "The prime minister has been a great friend of ours and a real ally in peace and development in this region (of) the world."?

Pashinyan thanked both Vance and US President Donald Trump and said that Armenia and neighboring Azerbaijan are "very close" to achieving peace after decades of conflict.

Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev signed preliminary agreements to that end at the White House last August.

Vance and Pashinyan signed a number of documents on Monday aimed at furthering peace, including commitments to peaceful nuclear cooperation and the establishment of a major rail and road transit corridor through Armenia to connect Azerbaijan with its Nakhchivan exclave.??

The transit route in particular has been a major bone of contention between Yerevan and Baku.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been in conflict over the Karabakh region, internationally known Nagorno-Karabakh, for nearly 40 years, with ethnic Armenian forces controlling the area from 1994 until 2020, when Azerbaijan regained control after a six-week war.

In September 2023, Azerbaijan launched a subsequent attack that dislodged separatists and forced most of Karabakh's 120,000 Armenians to flee for safety.

Both sides agreed to renounce claims on each other's territory as well as refraining from using force during their meeting with Trump, who promised that the new transit project would bring peace and prosperity to both nations.

Vice President Vance will travel to Azerbaijan on Tuesday for further meetings.

The visit comes at a time in which former Soviet states like Armenia and Azerbaijan are drifting away from Russia's sphere of influence in the aftermath of Moscow's invasion of neighboring Ukraine.

This has left the door open for the US to expand its diplomatic and economic footprint in the Southern Caucasus.

Armenia, for instance, has frozen its security pact with Russia and instead sought to deepen ties with Washington and the European Union.

Edited by: Wesley Dockery