By the fall of 2020, Azerbaijani forces had regained control of territories populated mainly by Armenians. Talks have been initiated by the mediation of the European Union.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have decided to launch preparations for peace talks between these two Caucasian countries which clashed in 2020 for control of the disputed Nagorny-Karabakh region, Armenian diplomacy said Thursday (April 7). in a press release.
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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev ordered their respective foreign ministers to “begin preparations for peace talks between the two countries“, during a meeting organized Wednesday in Brussels under the mediation of the European Union, specifies the press release.
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Bilateral commission to redefine borders
“An agreement was reached during this meeting (…) to set up a bilateral commission on border delimitation issues“, he continues. This commission will be responsible in particular for ensuring security and stability along the border, according to the same source. The meeting in Brussels came after renewed tensions in Nagorny-Karabakh, where Russian peacekeeping forces have been deployed since November 2020.
Heavy Armenian defeat in Nagorno-Karabakh
In November 2020, a ceasefire signed under Russian mediation between Armenia and Azerbaijan ended a six-week war between these two former Soviet republics in the Caucasus which are fighting for control of the enclave. independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. This conflict, which killed more than 6,500 people, ended in a heavy defeat for Armenia, which had to surrender large territories it had controlled since a first victorious war in the early 1990s.
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Populated mainly by Armenians, the mountainous region of Nagorny-Karabakh, supported by Yerevan, seceded from Azerbaijan at the collapse of the USSR, leading to a first war in the 1990s which caused the death of 30,000 people and made hundreds of thousands of refugees.
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