The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met in Georgia on Saturday for their first direct talks since the war between these two Caucasian countries in Nagorny Karabakh in 2020.
These discussions between the head of Armenian diplomacy Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Djeyhoun Baïramov, which took place in Tbilisi, are part of the wake of European mediation aimed at advancing towards a peace treaty.
The two diplomats "
discussed a wide range of topics relating to the normalization of relations between the two countries
", the Armenian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
During the meeting, Mr. Mirzoyan "
stressed the importance of a political resolution of the conflict in Karabakh in order to build lasting peace in the region
" of the Caucasus, according to the same source.
New rise in tension
However, a sign of the road that remains to be traveled, these talks were preceded by a rise in tension, the two countries accusing each other of bearing responsibility for a new exchange of fire at the border on the night of Friday to Saturday.
After a first war that killed more than 30,000 people in the early 1990s, Armenia and Azerbaijan clashed in the fall of 2020 for control of Nagorny Karabakh, a mountainous region which, supported by Yerevan, had made secession from Azerbaijan.
More than 6500 people were killed in this new war.
As part of a Moscow-brokered ceasefire agreement, Armenia ceded swathes of territory it controlled.
Call for the resignation of the Armenian Prime Minister
This agreement is considered in Armenia as a national humiliation and several opposition parties have called for the resignation of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, whom they accuse of wanting to cede more territory to Baku.
Several armed incidents have taken place in recent months on the border between the two countries.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Mr. Pashinian met twice in Brussels, in April and May, for contacts under the mediation of the European Union.
Russia, more and more isolated on the international scene because of its invasion of Ukraine, considers the Caucasus as its backyard and takes a dim view of the European initiative.