The foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia started meeting on Thursday in Almaty, Kazakhstan, to discuss a peace deal.

A statement by the Kazakh Foreign Ministry said Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan arrived at the House of Friendship in Almaty for a welcoming ceremony ahead of their meeting.

During the ceremony, Kazakh Foreign Minister Murat Nurtleu said Azerbaijan and Armenia are not only close countries but also important strategic partners for Astana.

It further said Nurtleu wished both parties fruitful work and confidential dialogue.

"The heads of the foreign affairs departments of Azerbaijan and Armenia, in their speeches, thanked the Kazakh side for providing a platform for negotiations and the high level of organization of the event," the statement also said.

It added that Bayramov and Mirzoyan began talks in a bilateral format after the ceremony.

Relations between Baku and Yerevan have remained tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during a 44-day war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement that opened the door to normalization and the demarcation of their border.

Last September, Azerbaijan established full sovereignty in Karabakh following an "anti-terrorist operation," after which separatist forces in the region surrendered.​​​​​​​​​​​​​​