Saturday, November 27th, 2021
Talks with Putin
Armenia and Azerbaijan are getting closer
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over the Nagorno-Karabakh region for decades. Since the fierce fighting a year ago, there have been repeated battles. Russian President Putin is now mediating: The warring Caucasus republics want, among other things, to mutually define their borders.
The political leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed to ease the tension between their countries. The Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev held talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi, Russia. Both subsequently described the meeting as “positive”.
“We have agreed on a number of points that I believe are key,” said Putin. Accordingly, the warring Caucasus republics want to begin to delineate their borders by mutual agreement. In addition, traffic connections between the states are to be rebuilt and “humanitarian issues” are to be discussed.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been fighting over control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region for decades. In the fall of 2020, they fought violently for weeks, killing more than 6,500 people. The fighting ended with a ceasefire agreement in favor of Azerbaijan. Since then there had been repeated skirmishes with dead and injured, most recently last week.
Many Armenians see national humiliation
The ceasefire in autumn 2020 had already been brokered by Russia. The meeting in Sochi took place a year after the agreement was signed. “We have been part of a united state for centuries, we have deep historical ties,” said Putin after holding separate talks with Aliyev and Pashinyan. “We should strive to rebuild it and promote it in the future.”
After the six-week fighting over Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, Armenia had to cede large areas, which it had controlled for decades, to Azerbaijan under the ceasefire agreement. Many Armenians see this as a national humiliation. In Azerbaijan, the outcome of the conflict is seen as a triumph.