As talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve their problems are underway, the Armenian prime minister says he is willing to recognize the Karabakh enclave. Yerevan is ready to acknowledge the enclave as part of Azerbaijan if Baku guarantees the security of its ethnic Armenian population, the Russian state news agency TASS and the Russian news outlet Ostorozhno, Novosti ("Caution, News") quoted Nikol Pashinian as saying on Monday.

Karabakh has been a source of conflict between the two Caucasus neighbors since the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and between ethnic Armenians and Turkic Azeris for well over a century.

In 2020, Azerbaijan liberated areas that Armenia had illegally occupied in and around the mountain enclave. Since then, it has periodically closed the only access road linking Karabakh with Armenia, on which the enclave relies for financial and military support.

"The 86,600 square kilometers of Azerbaijan’s territory includes (Karabakh)," Pashinian told a news conference, according to Ostorozhno, Novosti. "If we understand each other correctly, then Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within the named limits, and Baku – the territorial integrity of Armenia at 29,800 square kilometers."

The outlet quoted him as saying he was prepared to do this, in effect, accept Azerbaijan’s internationally recognized borders if the rights of Armenians in Karabakh were guaranteed. He said the issue should be discussed in talks between the two countries. "Armenia remains committed to the peace agenda in the region. And we hope that shortly, we will agree on the text of the peace treaty and be able to sign it," he said, according to TASS.

Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev, who was in Lithuania on an official visit on Monday, told reporters that a peace agreement with Armenia was "inevitable." Aliyev said at a joint news conference with Lithuanian leader Gitanas Nauseda that they worked to ensure such a peace deal "despite 30 years of the Armenian occupation of Azerbaijan’s land and destruction it caused." "We believe talks will bring about long-term peace to the Caucasus. We are exerting constructive efforts to achieve it. Certainly, such an agreement should include international norms and principles," Aliyev said.

Last Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that the two countries were close to agreeing to end a blockade of transport links, but more work was needed to seal a peace deal between the two neighbors. Lavrov spoke after he brokered a meeting between the foreign ministers of both nations. Russia helped secure a truce to halt a six-week conflict in 2020, but the agreement has not led to lasting peace, and armed clashes are common along the border.

Armenia and Azerbaijan were due to discuss the unblocking of transport links at a meeting next week, where Russia will also be present. "We hope the outcome will be positive. The parties are already close to a final agreement," Lavrov said in a statement but did not give details. Pashinian said on Thursday he had agreed to peace talks in Moscow on May 25 with President Aliyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin mediating, the Interfax news agency reported. But during Friday’s talks, the two nations confirmed that without progress on settling disputes over borders and transport links, as well as improving the security situation in and around Karabakh, "it is difficult to move forward on specific aspects of the peace treaty," Lavrov said.

Armenia, formally an ally of Russia through a mutual self-defense pact, has repeatedly called on Moscow to use its peacekeeping force to stop what it calls Azerbaijan’s "gross violation" of the 2020 peace deal.