Armenia and Azerbaijan take first step towards peace talks
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, European Council President Charles Michel and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pose for an official photo before their meeting at the European Council in Brussels on April 6, 2022. AFP - FRANCOIS WALSCHAERTS
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Progress towards a lasting peace in the South Caucasus seems to have been made on Wednesday April 6 in Brussels.
The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinian, and the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliev, met at length thanks to the mediation of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.
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With our correspondent in the region,
Régis Genté
"
Very productive
", this is how Charles Michel, the President of the European Council, judged the trilateral meeting of this April 6th.
During this meeting between Nikol Pashinian and Ilham Aliez, significant progress seems to have been made, laying the foundations for concrete discussions to sign a “
peace agreement
”.
Nobody seems to underestimate the challenges and difficulties that remain to be overcome in
this more than three decades old conflict
between the two republics of the South Caucasus, but the parties have, according to our sources, demonstrated a clear will to turn the page.
The two belligerents ordered their respective foreign ministers to "
begin preparations for peace talks between the two countries
",
And even if the peace agreement is still far away, the idea of solving the problems one by one to make it possible seems to be unanimous.
Hence the upcoming creation of a joint commission for the delimitation of the international borders between the two countries, partly rediscovered since the end of the 2020 war.
Humanitarian issues, in particular that of the prisoners still detained, mainly Armenians who remain in the hands of the Azerbaijanis, should also be dealt with quickly.
These discussions come a few days
after a resurgence of tensions between the two countries
which have been fighting for nearly thirty years for the control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region populated mainly by Armenians which seceded from Azerbaijan after the fall of the USSR.
The self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic.
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Nagorno-Karabakh
Azerbaijan
Diplomacy