(Brussels) European Council President Charles Michel has reported “progress” in talks between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan held in Brussels on Sunday, calling for “maintaining momentum” for a peace deal. peace.
These two Caucasian countries have been fighting for thirty years for control of the enclave of Nagorny Karabakh.
The meeting between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, the fifth of its kind in the framework of European mediation, took place after a week marked by new clashes on the border between the two countries, during which an Armenian soldier and an Azerbaijani soldier were killed.
But Charles Michel assured at the end of the meeting that the two leaders “shared a common desire for peace”, describing their exchanges as “frank, open and productive”.
“Following recent positive talks in the United States on a peace treaty, the momentum should be maintained to take decisive steps towards the signing of a comprehensive peace agreement,” he said. he added.
The European official was referring to talks held for four days in early May in Washington between Armenian and Azerbaijani delegations, this time sponsored by Washington.
Charles Michel said that the two leaders had agreed to resume bilateral meetings on the issue of border delimitation. “Clear progress” has been made in unblocking transport, “particularly on the reopening of rail links to and through” the Azerbaijani enclave of Nakhchivan, nestled between Armenia and Iran, he said.
The two leaders also agreed on new releases of detainees “in the coming weeks”, according to the European official.
A new meeting between MM. Pashinyan and Aliyev is already scheduled for 1er June in Moldova, involving French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, in addition to Charles Michel, on the sidelines of the second summit of the European Political Community.
The two Caucasian countries clashed in two wars in the early 1990s and in 2020 for control of Nagorny Karabakh, a mountainous region mostly populated by Armenians that seceded from Azerbaijan more than three decades ago. .
At the end of the short war which saw Azerbaijan retake territories in this separatist region in the fall of 2020, Baku and Yerevan concluded a ceasefire promoted by Russia. Since then, Russian peacekeepers have been deployed in Nagorny Karabakh, but Armenia has been complaining for several months about their inefficiency.
Tensions recently resumed when Baku announced on April 23 that it had set up a first road checkpoint at the entrance to the Lachin corridor, the only axis linking Armenia to the separatist enclave, already subject to a blockade which has caused power shortages and cuts.