The Kremlin on Tuesday said any efforts to resolve the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan were welcome, but that the basis of any long-term solution should be a Russian-brokered peace agreement signed in 2020.

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken hosted the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington on Monday for talks aimed at cooling tensions between the two South Caucasus rivals.

These have risen recently since Azerbaijan installed a checkpoint on a key road linking Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh, a mountainous region inside Azerbaijan populated mostly by ethnic Armenians. (Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Kevin Liffey)