During the official visit of the Foreign Minister of Armenia to Brazil, the spokesperson of MFA Ani Badalyan gave an interview to Radio Senado, which is broadcast in over 100 cities across Brazil, reaching around 2 million audience.
The interview covered developments regarding the signing of the “Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan”, the other two aspects of the normalization process with Azerbaijan, namely border delimitation and unblocking of regional infrastructure. The normalization process with Türkiye as well as Armenia’s bilateral relations with Brazil were also touched upon.
Below are the key excerpts from the interview.
“So the first one is the peace treaty. For the past three years, there have been extensive negotiations on the draft text of the agreement, there have been meetings between the two foreign ministers, as well as the leaders of the two countries, and there were also exchanges of the proposals on the text of the agreement. And I'm sure you have been following the developments: we announced that the text of the peace treaty has been agreed upon. By agreeing to the last version, the last edition of the peace treaty, Armenia paved the way to say that the text of the peace treaty is now agreed upon, and the negotiations are finalized. Of course, the next question comes: when are you going to sign the treaty? Yes, because if the text is ready, then when is the signing? So what we did was we proposed to Azerbaijan to sign the treaty, start the consultations about the venue and the place of the treaty to sign the treaty. This is our vision”.
Referring to the delimitation of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Ani Badalyan stated that 12 kilometers of the state border between the two countries was delimited in 2024, expecting that the process will continue effectively.
“And the third pillar is the unblocking of regional communications, because for the region to flourish and to prosper, we don't need closed borders, we need them open.
And this goes beyond Armenia, beyond our region: we need to become a crossroads which can connect Asia to Europe and vice versa. And here, you might have heard that we came up with the proposal, which is called the “Crossroads of Peace” Initiative. To change, to shift the South Caucasus from a space of confrontation into a space of prosperity, we proposed a very concrete project and very concrete proposals to Azerbaijan, to start with the unblocking of the railway connection”.
Referring to the accusations made those days by Azerbaijan on the alleged ceasefire violations, Ani Badalyan stated:
“I think it's crystal clear that Armenia has no intention to have any violations of the ceasefire, just the opposite: we are interested in having stability at the border, and our initiatives come to prove that. To have more predictability and more clarity, we have even proposed to Azerbaijan to have a mechanism to identify and to verify the violations of the ceasefire. We have also proposed to Azerbaijan to create arms control and verification mechanism”.
Referring to the process of normalization of relations with Türkiye, the spokesperson of the Foreign Ministry of Armenia noted that some progress has been recorded in the process, such as the launch of direct flights and the removal of barriers to air cargo transportation. Noting that the Government of Armenia has refurbished the "Margara" checkpoint on the border with Türkiye, Ani Badalyan informed that the checkpoint is ready for the functioning and in recent years it has been opened in some cases for humanitarian purposes.
On the cooperation between Armenia and Brazil, Ani Badalyan made the following remarks. “The relations between Armenia and Brazil are very effective. We have a dynamic political dialogue between the two countries at different levels. Of course, in this context, I should mention the minister's visit and the meeting between the two ministers. I can definitely say that the agenda was quite broad. So at the core, we have political dialogue, which is based upon mutual respect and also the democratic values, which we believe we strongly share with Brazil.
But also, it includes the possible cooperation in different areas. And the two ministers identified key sectors where we could do more. For example, let's take the economy and trade. Last year, the trade turnover between Armenia and Brazil saw some increase, but we see that this is very small, we can have more tangible deliverables. For that, we are trying to foster business to business contacts. As a very concrete example, we are fostering the cooperation between the Brazilian “AIPEX” agency and “Enterprise Armenia” which are dealing with the investments and engagements between the business people. Another area is IT, high technologies where Armenia has some experience to share, but we also have a lot to learn from Brazil.
I believe after the meeting of the ministers, we will have concrete instructions also to other agencies and ministries to take forward what has been discussed and come up with some fresh ideas on how to foster the cooperation.
But of course, we are here in the Senate. So I should also mention the inter-parliamentary relations between the two countries. One important fact: the friendship group in the Brazilian parliament was recreated in May 2023, аnd we also have the friendship group in Armenia’s Parliament. We believe this inter-parliamentary bonds and ties and regular visits, which we have seen recently, add to the agenda of the two countries.
I should add two more points here when we speak about the relations between Armenia and Brazil.
One, as you know, Brazil is one of the key partners in Latin America. And fostering relations with Latin America is one of the important elements of the foreign policy of Armenia. Last year, exactly these days, the Minister was paying a visit to Uruguay and Argentina. So we view this partnership with the Latin American countries from a broader perspective, as partners with whom we can cooperate on many different international issues. And for example, with Brazil, again, we have very concrete topics to cooperate on, which is sustainable development, environmental issues. As you know, Brazil will host in Belem COP-30, and Armenia won last year the hosting of COP-17 in Yerevan. So here we are very much also looking forward to close cooperation with Brazil, both through exchanges, events that we can organize jointly.
