Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to recognize each other’s territorial integrity, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a meeting of the EAEU Council.
Pashinyan stressed that Armenia is ready to unblock all transport and economic corridors, as well as open regional communications with Azerbaijan.
In turn, the head of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, said that “there is a possibility for Baku and Yerevan to reach a peace agreement, especially considering that Armenia has recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.” He also noted that Azerbaijan has no territorial claims against Armenia.
As a result of the negotiations, according to Kommersant, the heads of Armenia and Azerbaijan will sign two documents: on the unblocking of transport communications and a joint statement by Aliyev, Pashinyan and Vladimir Putin on mutual recognition of the territorial integrity of the two countries. Such a statement, as the newspaper notes, the heads of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed for the fifth time.
On Monday, May 22, Nikol Pashinyan stated that Armenia is ready to recognize the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, provided that Baku guarantees the rights of the Armenian population there.
At the same time, the parliament of the self-proclaimed “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” condemned the statement of the Prime Minister of Armenia about his readiness to recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. The deputies accused Pashinyan of grossly violating the provisions of Armenian law regarding the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. In particular, back in 1992, the Supreme Council of Armenia decided that any international or domestic document, in which Karabakh will be listed as part of Azerbaijan, is considered unacceptable for the Republic of Armenia.
The authorities of Armenia and Azerbaijan stepped up the process of resolving the territorial conflict in early May: the foreign ministers of the two countries met in Washington and Moscow, and the leaders of the states met in Brussels under the supervision of the head of the European Council Charles Michel. During these negotiations, conditions were worked out for mutual recognition of the territorial integrity of the two countries.
The territorial dispute between Armenia and Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh has been going on since the late 1980s. Populated mainly by ethnic Armenians, the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, with the support of Armenia, announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan SSR, and in September 1991 announced the creation of the “Nagorno-Karabakh Republic”.
During the armed conflict of 1988-1994, 30,000 people died in the separatist region. Nagorno-Karabakh and several adjacent regions of Azerbaijan came under the actual control of the Armed Forces of Armenia. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people, mostly ethnic Azerbaijanis, became refugees and forced migrants.
After another aggravation of the situation at the end of September 2020, Azerbaijan returned the areas around Nagorno-Karabakh under its control and took the ancient and symbolically significant city of Shusha (in Armenian Shushi). The day after the capture of Shusha, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin signed a peace agreement to end the war in the region.
Under the terms of the agreement, the territories where the troops were located at the time of signing the document were assigned to Armenia and Azerbaijan. A peacekeeping mission of Russia is deployed along the line of contact.
