Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders order their international ministers to start preparation of a future peace treaty.
Armenia and Azerbaijan are getting ready for peace talks, their officers mentioned on Thursday, after a latest flare-up within the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh area.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met on Wednesday in Brussels for uncommon talks mediated by the European Council President Charles Michel.
The assembly got here after a flare-up in Nagorno-Karabakh on March 25 that allegedly noticed Azerbaijan seize a strategic village within the space beneath the Russian peacekeepers’ accountability, killing three Armenian separatist troops.
Through the assembly, the 2 leaders “ordered international ministers to start preparatory work for peace talks between the 2 international locations”, the international ministry in Yerevan mentioned in an announcement.
“An settlement was reached through the assembly … to arrange a bilateral fee on the problems of delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijan border, which will likely be in control of guaranteeing safety and stability alongside the frontier,” the ministry mentioned.
Azerbaijan’s international ministry additionally mentioned works have been beneath method to start peace talks, including that the long run peace treaty could be based mostly “on the fundamental rules proposed earlier by Azerbaijan”.
The European Union mentioned Michel “famous each President Aliyev’s and Prime Minister Pashinyan’s said need to maneuver quickly in direction of a peace settlement between their international locations”.
“To this finish, it was agreed to instruct Ministers of International Affairs to work on the preparation of a future peace treaty, which might deal with all vital points,” it mentioned in an announcement.
Ceasefire violation
After the March incident, Moscow and Yerevan accused Azerbaijan of a ceasefire violation, a cost Baku has rejected, insisting its troops are in Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory.
Yerevan additionally known as on Baku to start out peace talks “directly”. Baku agreed, saying it had already put ahead such a proposal a 12 months in the past.
Baku tabled in mid-March its set of framework proposals for the peace settlement that features each side’ mutual recognition of territorial integrity, which means Yerevan ought to agree on Nagorno-Karabakh being a part of Azerbaijan.
Armenian international minister Ararat Mirzoyan sparked controversy at house when he mentioned – commenting on the Azerbaijani proposal – that for Yerevan “the Nagorno-Karabakh battle isn’t a territorial subject, however a matter of rights” of the native ethnic-Armenian inhabitants.
Lengthy-contested between the Caucasus neighbours, Nagorno-Karabakh was on the centre of an all-out battle in 2020 that killed greater than 6,500 individuals earlier than it ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire settlement.
The pact noticed Armenia cede swathes of territories it had managed for many years in what was seen in Armenia as a nationwide humiliation, sparking weeks of mass anti-government protests.
On Tuesday, a number of thousand opposition supporters rallied in Yerevan to warn the federal government towards concessions on Nagorno-Karabakh.
Ethnic Armenian separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan when the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. The following conflicts killed about 30,000 individuals.