Armenia may sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan before November, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Tuesday, according to Russian state news agency RIA.
"I agree with the idea of signing a peace agreement by November, and for this to happen, all agreed-upon principles must be enshrined in the agreement," Pashinyan told a news conference in Yerevan.
Pashinyan further expressed his hope that progress will be made at the upcoming meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers in Kazakhstan.
On Monday, Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aybek Smadiyarov confirmed during a press briefing in Astana that Azerbaijan and Armenia's top diplomats will hold talks on a peace deal on May 10 in Almaty.
The South Caucasus rivals have been working to normalize their long-troubled relations and hammer a peace agreement since last year when Azerbaijan regained full control of the Karabakh province that had been under the illegal occupation of Armenia-backed ethnic Armenian separatists since the 1990s.
A six-week war in 2020 resulted in Azerbaijan liberating large parts of the breakaway region, and in September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lighting blitz that forced Karabakh's Armenian "authorities" to capitulate in negotiations mediated by Russian forces.
Since December, the sides have been struggling to begin negotiations on a peace treaty, key parts for which were demarcating borders and establishing regional transport corridors through each other's territory.
In a historic breakthrough, the neighbors late last month reached an agreement over a stretch of border that would cut through four Azeri villages in Armenia's Tavush province. This would mean that Armenia would return some more territory to Azerbaijan. Authorities on both sides announced they had installed the first border marker, although it wasn’t immediately clear where exactly it was placed.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev recently said Baku and Yerevan were edging closer to a common understanding of a peace agreement.
“We are close and maybe closer than ever before (to signing a peace agreement),” Aliyev said.
Last month, the Armenian premier said the Caucasus nation needs to quickly define the border with Azerbaijan to avoid a new round of hostilities.
The four abandoned settlements that are to be returned to Azerbaijan, Lower Askipara, Baghanis Ayrum, Kheirimly and Gizilhajili, were taken over by Armenian forces in the 1990s, forcing their ethnic Azerbaijani residents to flee.
The area is strategically important for landlocked Armenia. Several small sections of the highway to Georgia, vital for foreign trade, could end up in the territory to be returned to Azerbaijan. The delimited border will also run close to a major Russian gas pipeline, and the area has advantageous military positions.
Earlier in April, Russia began withdrawing its forces from Karabakh, where they have been stationed as peacekeepers under a truce brokered by Moscow that ended the 2020 war.
The neighbors are also battling out their differences at the International Court of Justice (ICJ), where they seek rulings against each other over the fallout of the Karabakh wars.
Armenia’s case, filed at the World Court in 2021, accuses Azerbaijan of allegedly glorifying racism against Armenians, allowing hate speech against Armenians and destroying Armenian cultural sites in violation of the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination (CERD) – all accusations that Baku denies.
In subsequently filed claims, Azerbaijan accused Armenia of discrimination and ethnic cleansing against Azerbaijanis and breaching the same treaty.
The World Court heard both sides' arguments in two-weeklong proceedings last month, but final rulings in either case could be years away and the court has no way to enforce its rulings.
