(Moscow) The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan said ahead of their talks in Moscow on Thursday that they were moving towards normalizing relations after mutual recognition of their territorial integrity.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev spoke ahead of the start of the talks, which are to take place under the aegis of Russian President Vladimir Putin.
They spoke separately with the Russian head of state before the start of the trilateral meeting, which began late Thursday.
Baku and Yerevan have been engaged for decades in a conflict for control of the Azerbaijani region of Nagorny Karabakh, populated mainly by Armenians.
“It is possible to reach a peace agreement, given that Armenia has officially recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan,” Aliev told the Russian-led Eurasian Economic Union.
“Azerbaijan has no territorial claims against Armenia,” he added.
Mr Pashinyan said the two countries are “making good progress in normalizing their relations, based on mutual recognition of territorial integrity”.
He added that Armenia was ready to “unblock all transport links in the region that pass through Armenian territory”.
Mr Putin said the trio would discuss “very important and sensitive issues” such as “unblocking transport routes”.
“Despite the difficulties and the problems that remain, the situation is moving towards a settlement,” assured the Russian president. He said that the deputy prime ministers of the three countries would meet within a week in Moscow in order to “resolve outstanding issues” regarding the reopening of transport links between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
The two countries sought to negotiate a peace agreement with the help of the European Union and the United States. On May 14, during a meeting organized in Brussels by the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, they agreed on the mutual recognition of territorial integrity.
Western diplomatic engagement in the Caucasus has angered traditional regional powerhouse Russia. Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars — in 2020 and in the 1990s — for control of Nagorny Karabakh.
Six weeks of clashes in the fall of 2020 ended with a Moscow-brokered ceasefire, which saw Armenia cede swaths of territory it had controlled for decades.
Armenia, which has relied on military and economic support from Russia since the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, has accused Moscow of failing to fulfill its peacekeeping role in Karabakh.