Azerbaijan and Armenia have efficiently wrapped up peace talks geared toward resolving their decades-long battle.
The international ministries of the Caucasus neighbours say a peace treaty has been agreed in what can be in a breakthrough in a area the place Russia, the EU, the US and Turkey all jostle for affect.
Two wars have been fought for management of Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated area of Nagorno-Karabakh – on the finish of the Soviet Union and in 2020 – earlier than Azerbaijan seized the territory in September 2023.
Each nations had repeatedly mentioned a complete peace deal to finish their longstanding animosity was inside attain however officers failed to achieve consensus on a draft settlement.
“The negotiation course of on the textual content of the peace settlement with Armenia has been concluded,” mentioned Jeyhun Bayramov, Azerbaijan’s international minister. “Armenia has accepted Azerbaijan’s proposals on the 2 beforehand unresolved articles of the peace treaty.”
Armenia’s international ministry later issued an announcement saying: “Negotiations on the draft settlement have been concluded – the peace settlement is prepared for signing.”
In a touch on the enduring tensions, Armenia criticised Azerbaijan for making an announcement unilaterally moderately than issuing a joint one. Nevertheless it mentioned it was prepared to begin talks on the “dates and placement for signing the settlement”.
Nikol Pashinyan, Armenia’s prime minister, has recognised Azerbaijan’s sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh after three many years of Armenian separatist rule – a transfer seen as an important first step in direction of the normalisation of relations. Armenia additionally final yr returned to Azerbaijan 4 border villages it had seized many years earlier.
Tensions over the battle have additionally pushed a wedge between Armenia and Russia, with Yerevan having accused Moscow of not doing sufficient to help it. Armenia final yr suspended its participation within the Russian-led Collective Safety Treaty Group over the bloc’s failure to come back to its help within the battle with Azerbaijan.
Russia, the US and the EU have all tried to play a mediating function at varied instances within the battle.
In late January, Pashinyan mentioned two out of 17 factors within the draft peace settlement remained unresolved. Armenia’s international minister, Ararat Mirzoyan, mentioned the identical in a speech to parliament on Wednesday.
A key downside was disagreement over the “non-deployment of third-party forces” alongside the nations’ border, Pashinyan mentioned. He instructed that such deployments must be allowed “within the sections of the border the place demarcation has already been carried out”.
There have been additionally disagreements over plans for either side to withdraw authorized circumstances from worldwide judicial our bodies. The 2 nations stay locked in authorized battles within the worldwide court docket of justice, worldwide prison court docket and the European court docket of human rights over allegations of rights violations dedicated earlier than, throughout and after their armed conflicts.
“We should be sure that we aren’t solely withdrawing the circumstances from worldwide courts but in addition renouncing them altogether,” Pashinyan mentioned. “In any other case, a scenario could come up the place either side withdraw their circumstances from worldwide courts however on the subsequent stage Azerbaijan raises these points bilaterally, doubtlessly resulting in escalation.”
Azerbaijan’s “subsequent expectation from Armenia is constitutional amendments”, mentioned Bayramov. His authorities needs Armenia to take away from its structure a reference to its declaration of independence, which asserts territorial claims over Nagorno-Karabakh. Amendments to the structure would require a referendum.
Almost all its ethnic Armenian residents – greater than 100,000 individuals – fled Nagorno-Karabakh after it fell to Azerbaijan in a 24-hour offensive.
Supply hyperlink
