Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenian Prime Minister, will meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev next May.
By HR with AFP
© HALLDOR KOLBEINS / AFP
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VLadimir Putin succeeded in obtaining a summit meeting between the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinian, and the Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliyev. The head of government of Armenia announced this Thursday, May 18. He will meet his counterpart from Azerbaijan on 25th May next in Moscow. An expected meeting between the representatives of these two Caucasian countries whose relations are particularly tense.
“We have received from Russia a proposal to organize a trilateral meeting at the highest level, under the mediation of the Russian President, on May 25. We have accepted this proposal,” Nikol Pashinian said during a government meeting. For the time being, the Azerbaijani president has not confirmed his presence. The announcement comes as the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are due to meet in Moscow on Friday for peace talks.
Avoid further escalation
These discussions are part of a context of renewed tensions between the two countries, which are vying for control of Nagorno-Karabakh, a region mainly populated by Armenians who seceded from Baku with the help of Yerevan. These two former Soviet republics have fought each other in two wars in just over thirty years. The last, in 2020, ended in a landslide victory for Azerbaijan, which took over important territories in and around Nagorno-Karabakh.
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Despite a Moscow-sponsored ceasefire, clashes regularly erupt in Nagorno-Karabakh and on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. On May 17, the Armenian army announced the death of a wounded soldier by firing from Azerbaijani forces on the border. The previous week, an Armenian soldier and an Azerbaijani soldier had been killed in other border clashes. In recent weeks, international efforts to calm the situation have intensified.
Intense discussions took place for four days in early May in Washington between Armenian and Azerbaijani delegations. Last Sunday, Messrs. Aliyev and Pashinian had also met in Brussels during negotiations under the aegis of the EU. These Western initiatives are seen with a bad eye by Russia, which considers the Caucasus as its backyard.