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View of the town of Taghavard in the Nagorno-Karabakh region: Will an Armenian proposal bring peace?
Photo: ARTEM MIKRYUKOV / REUTERS
Around 30,000 people have died since fighting began in the Nagorno-Karabakh region in the 1990s.
Now the possibility of easing tensions between the two conflicting parties, Armenia and Azerbaijan, could arise.
Armenia has submitted the draft "for a comprehensive agreement" to Azerbaijan, as Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced at a cabinet meeting, according to the TASS agency.
Another stage "for a peace treaty and the establishment of (diplomatic) relations" with Baku has been completed, Pashinyan said.
The document must be acceptable to Azerbaijan and its signing must bring about lasting peace, Pashinyan said.
Details of the proposals were not given.
Previous attempts to settle the conflict had failed.
A reaction from Azerbaijan to the initiative has not yet been announced.
Since the collapse of the Soviet Union, there have been repeated military conflicts between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence in 1991, but this was never recognised.
For years, Armenia had militarily secured the region, which was mostly inhabited by ethnic Armenians, which meant an illegal occupation of Azerbaijani territories.
Heavy fights last in September
In 2020, the conflict flared up again.
More than 6,500 people died before a Russian-brokered ceasefire agreement came into effect.
Armenia had to give up large areas.
Heavy fighting broke out again in autumn 2022.
Tensions in the region flared up again in December when activists apparently hired by the Baku government blocked the Lachin Corridor, the only road linking Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia.
They were protesting what they believed to be illegal mining operations.
Since the blockade, the enclave has been suffering from a shortage of food, medicine and fuel, the Armenian parliament said.
The government in Yerevan accused Baku of causing a humanitarian crisis in the enclave with the blockade.
Azerbaijan's government, on the other hand, described the concerns of the demonstrators as justified.
fek/AFP/Reuters