After Azerbaijan recaptures Karabakh, peace negotiations advance and push towards a treaty that will end decades of hostility.
Officials in Armenia and Azerbaijani have said they have agreed to the text of a peace agreement to end a nearly 40-year conflict between the South Caucasian countries.
The two post-Soviet countries have fought a series of wars since the late 1980s when Nagorno Karabakh, a region of Azerbaijan, left Azerbaijan, left with support from Armenia, which had a predominantly Armenian population at the time.
Armenia’s foreign ministry said in a statement on Thursday that a draft peace agreement with Azerbaijan has been completed from that side.
“The peace agreement is ready to be signed. The Republic of Armenia is ready to commence consultations with the Republic of Azerbaijan on the date and place of signing the contract,” Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
In that statement, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Azerbaijan said: “Please note that we are pleased that the text of the draft peace agreement and negotiations regarding the establishment of interstate relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have concluded.”
However, as Azerbaijan has stated that the prerequisite for its signature is a change to Armenia’s constitution, the timeline for signing the transaction is uncertain, and it says it will make its territory an implicit claim.
Armenia has denied such claims, but Prime Minister Nicole Pashinyan has repeatedly said in recent months that the country’s founding documents need to be replaced and that he is seeking a referendum to do so. No dates are set.
The outbreak of hostilities in the late 1980s prompted the mass expulsion of hundreds of thousands of Muslim Azeris from the majority of Christians from Azerbaijan, Armenians and Armenians.
Peace negotiations began after Azerbaijan recaptured Karabakh by force in September 2023, urging almost all of the 100,000 Armenians on the territory to flee to Armenia. Both sides have said they want to sign a treaty to end the long-term conflict, but progress has been slow and relationships are strained.
The 1,000km (621 miles) shared border between the two countries has been closed and is heavily militarized.
In January, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev accused Armenia of pose a “fascist” threat that needed to be destroyed, in comments that Armenian leaders called for an attempt to justify the fresh conflict.
Source link
