Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan offered Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to organize a two-day foreign ministerial meeting of the two countries to agree upon the few outstanding articles of the peace treaty, and then sign the treaty before COP29, a senior lawmaker has said.
In an interview with Armenpress, Member of Parliament Sargis Khandanyan, Chairman of the Parliamentary Committee on Foreign Affairs, commented on Azerbaijani President Aliyev’s latest statements.
Question: Mr. Khandanyan, on October 14, the Azerbaijani President announced at a meeting with the new Belgian Ambassador in Azerbaijan that the Republic of Armenia is the one that refused to continue the talks in the Brussels platform. But the Armenian government presented this in a bit different way.
Answer: In order to answer this question we should cite the facts. In June 2023, within the framework of the European Political Community summit, the five-sided meeting of French President Macron, German Chancellor Scholz, European Council President Michel, Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan took place, as a platform summing up the Brussels discussions. An agreement had been reached to hold the next meeting in that format during the European Political Community summit in Granada in October of the same year, after the upcoming trilateral meeting in Brussels.
The trilateral meeting in Brussels took place on July 15, 2023, while Azerbaijan refused to participate in the Granada meeting. Immediately after Granada the European Council President Michel announced that a meeting of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan is planned for late October, and the parties had given their consent already. Nevertheless, afterwards the Azerbaijani side rejected this meeting too.
During the 2 February 2024 phone call between Prime Minister Pashinyan and European Council President Michel, the latter offered to hold a trilateral meeting in Brussels in the beginning of March. An agreement was reached to hold the meeting on March 12. Azerbaijan then rejected this meeting also. In April, Charles Michel address in a letter the Armenian Prime Minister and the Azerbaijani President, offering to hold a trilateral meeting in Brussels. Prime Minister Pashinyan agreed, while the Azerbaijani side refused. I will add that to this day Azerbaijan has not fulfilled a number of commitments of humanitarian nature which it assumed during the meetings in Brussels, pertaining to releasing prisoners of war and other detainees.
Question: But Azerbaijan claims that Armenia refused the offer on holding a meeting within the framework of the European Political Community in Great Britain in July.
Answer: Armenia didn’t refuse it, but found a meeting in a new format to be inappropriate and offered Azerbaijan to hold a bilateral meeting in Great Britain, which was refused by Azerbaijan, which had earlier rejected the five-sided format meetings. As far as I know, during the informal contacts in Moscow on October 7-8, Prime Minister Pashinyan offered President Aliyev to hold a bilateral meeting.
More precisely, he offered that the foreign ministers hold a two-day meeting to agree [finalize] the one-two unresolved articles of the peace treaty, and then for the leaders to sign the treaty before the Baku COP29. Frankly speaking I am unaware of the Azerbaijani response, but I hope that this logic will be possible to implement.
