Following a recent flare-up in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory, Armenia and Azerbaijan are preparing for peace negotiations, according to respective officials.
On Wednesday in Brussels, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met for unusual talks mediated by European Council President Charles Michel.
The conference took place following a flare-up in Nagorno-Karabakh on March 25, in which Azerbaijan allegedly captured a crucial settlement in the region under Russian peacekeepers’ control, killing three Armenian separatist troops.
The two leaders “directed foreign ministers to begin preparatory work for peace talks between the two nations” during the meeting, according to a statement from Yerevan’s foreign ministry.
“During the meeting… an agreement was reached… to establish a bilateral commission on issues of border delimitation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which will be responsible for safeguarding security and stability along the border,” the ministry said.
The foreign ministry of Azerbaijan also stated that preparations were being made to start peace talks, and that the eventual peace treaty would be based on “the basic ideas provided earlier by Azerbaijan.”
Michel “noted both President Aliyev’s and Prime Minister Pashinyan’s declared intention to move quickly toward a peace agreement between their countries,” according to the European Union.
“To this aim, it was agreed to order Foreign Ministers to work on the preparation of a future peace treaty, which would address all relevant topics,” the statement stated.
Following the March incident, Moscow and Yerevan accused Azerbaijan of violating a ceasefire, which Baku has denied, claiming that its troops are on its sovereign territory.
Yerevan also urged Baku to begin peace negotiations “immediately.” Baku accepted, claiming that it had made a similar approach a year prior.
Baku presented a set of framework ideas for a peace accord in mid-March, which includes mutual acknowledgment of territorial integrity on both sides, implying that Yerevan should accept Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.
When Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan declared, in response to the Azerbaijani proposal, that “the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is not a territorial issue, but a matter of rights” for the local ethnic-Armenian community, he aroused outrage at home.
Nagorno-Karabakh has long been a point of contention between the Caucasus neighbours, and in 2020 it was at the centre of an all-out conflict that killed over 6,500 people before coming to a close with a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement.
Armenia ceded swaths of territory it had governed for decades as part of the accord, which was viewed as a national disgrace in Armenia and sparked weeks of anti-government rallies.
Thousands of opposition supporters gathered in Yerevan on Tuesday to urge the government against making compromises in Nagorno-Karabakh.
When the Soviet Union fell apart in 1991, ethnic Armenian rebels in Nagorno-Karabakh split away from Azerbaijan. Approximately 30,000 individuals were slain in the ensuing wars.
