Nagorno-Karabakh: Armenian Prime Minister returns to Moscow to see Putin

Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in the Kremlin at the end of 2018. AFP - ALEXANDER NEMENOV

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2 mins

This Tuesday, April 19, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian is traveling to Moscow to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The two leaders are due to discuss Nagorno-Karabakh, a region that Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over since the 1988-1994 war, and which has come back partly under the control of the latter, after its victory during the fall war 2020.

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With our correspondent for the South Caucasus,

If the content of the planned discussions between MM.

Putin and Pashinian have not been revealed, it is obvious that Nagorno-Karabakh will be at the heart of these.

Armenia's prime minister is expected to report on his talks with the Azerbaijani president in Brussels two weeks ago.

On 6th April last Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and the head of the Armenian government Nikol Pashinian met at length in the Belgian capital, under the aegis of the European Union.

The aim was to consider in particular a "peace agreement" about the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

But this agreement raises tensions on the Armenian side.

►Read again: Thousands of opponents of Pashinian demonstrate in Armenia, one year after the defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh

Moscow seemed annoyed to somewhat lose control of the peace process around the Karabakh issue.

Hence the Kremlin's insistence that this Tuesday's discussion be based on the documents signed as part of Moscow's mediation to obtain a ceasefire at the end of 2020. 

It is also to bet that Mr Pashinian will inform his host of the difficulties that the possible signing of a peace agreement would entail, Armenia now being in a weak position.

In recent weeks, this prospect has caused a stir between Yerevan, the Armenian capital, and Stepanakert, capital of the self-declared republic, in particular after Mr. Pashinyan warned that the international community was asking him to make concessions on the status of the Nagorno-Karabakh.

The latter's authorities categorically refuse his reintegration into the Republic of Azerbaijan.

►Read again: Agreement between Yerevan and Baku on a link between Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan enclave in Armenia

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• Nikol Pashinian

• Nagorno-Karabakh

• Armenia

• Vladimir Poutine

• Russia

• Ilham Aliyev