The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan discussed a peace treaty over the weekend, Yerevan and Baku announced on Monday (October 3rd), following recent deadly clashes between the two countries.
Last month, at least 286 people were killed in these clashes.
A US-brokered truce ended the worst fighting between the two Caucasian neighbors since their 2020 war.
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Armenia, an ally of Russia, and Azerbaijan, backed by Turkey, have clashed in two wars over the past three decades for control of Nagorny Karabakh, a predominantly Armenian-populated enclave attached to the Azerbaijan.
Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan met his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov on Sunday evening in Geneva (Switzerland) to "
draft the text of the peace treaty
", according to Baku.
These talks follow the meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on August 31 in Brussels, mediated by the EU.
Azerbaijan has called for the "
total withdrawal of Armenian armed units from the territories of Azerbaijan
" and "
the opening of transport and communication lines
", according to a statement from its Foreign Ministry.
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“
The parties exchanged ideas on the peace treaty, guaranteeing the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorny Karabakh
,” the Armenian Foreign Ministry said.
He reaffirmed his demands for the “
withdrawal
” of Azerbaijani troops “
from the sovereign territory of Armenia
”, the release of prisoners of war and the creation of “
international mechanisms to control the situation on the border
”.
The two ministers last met on September 20 in New York (United States).
The 2020 war between Armenia and Azerbaijan claimed the lives of more than 6,500 soldiers and came to a halt after a Russian-brokered ceasefire.
Armenia has ceded territories it has controlled for decades and Moscow has deployed some 2,000 Russian soldiers to watch over this fragile truce.
As Moscow has become increasingly isolated on the international scene since its invasion of Ukraine in late February, the United States and the European Union have taken a major role as mediators in the process of normalization between Baku and Yerevan.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the separatist Armenians of Nagorny Karabakh unilaterally declared their independence.
The ensuing conflict claimed 30,000 lives.