Armenia and Azerbaijan ready for peace negotiations

Armenia and Azerbaijan are preparing for peace talks, according to Armenia’s foreign ministry, following a flare-up last month in the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh territory, over which they waged a war in 2020.

During an EU-mediated meeting in Brussels on Wednesday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev “directed foreign ministers to begin preliminary work for peace talks between the two countries,” the foreign ministry in Yerevan said in a statement.

“During the meeting, an agreement was made… to establish a bilateral commission on the problems of border delimitation between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which would be in responsibility of guaranteeing security and stability along the border,” the ministry noted.

Aliyev and Pashinyan met in Brussels on Wednesday for unusual discussions, which were mediated by European Council President Charles Michel.

The conference took place following a flare-up in Karabakh on March 25, when Azerbaijan captured a crucial town in the region under Russian peacekeepers’ control, killing three rebel forces.

At the time, Moscow and Yerevan accused Azerbaijan of violating the ceasefire, a charge Baku has denied, claiming that its forces are on Azerbaijan’s sovereign territory.

Yerevan also urged Baku to begin peace negotiations “immediately.” Baku accepted, claiming that it had made a similar approach a year before.

Long a source of contention between the Caucasus neighbours, Karabakh was at the centre of an all-out war in 2020 that lost over 6,500 lives before ending with a Russian-brokered ceasefire accord.

The treaty saw Armenia surrender vast swaths of territory that it had ruled for decades.

When the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, ethnic Armenian rebels in Nagorno-Karabakh broke apart from Azerbaijan. Around 30,000 people were killed in the subsequent wars.