However, according to Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, the way the Azerbaijani authorities speak leaves the possibility of a new “military aggression” against Armenia.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have reached a preliminary agreement on the basic elements of the peace agreement, although they still speak “a different diplomatic language”, the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said on Saturday.
The news agencies AP and Reuters report on the matter.
Azerbaijan took Nagorno-Karabakh back from the separatist administration in a short-lived war in September.
Although the separatist administration announced that their state would cease to exist in early 2024, the Azerbaijani authorities soon after the takeover strengthened their positions in the administration of the region and arrested several separatist leaders.
The Nagorno-Karabakh region had already declared itself an independent state after the collapse of the Soviet Union in the early 1990s, but no UN member state had recognized its independence.
Although according to international law, Nagorno-Karabakh belongs to Azerbaijan, its population is ethnically Armenian. After the start of the war, the majority of the region’s 120,000 inhabitants fled to Armenia.
Pashinyan according to which Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed, among other things, that they recognize each other’s territorial integrity.
However, Armenia’s state news agency Armenpress reports that Pashinyan said that he doubts Azerbaijan’s real commitment to peace, as it did not publicly comment on the draft peace agreement announced in October.
According to Pashinyan, the way the Azerbaijani authorities speak also leaves the possibility of a new “military aggression” against Armenia. He said that some Azerbaijani officials, among other things, called Armenia “West Azerbaijan”.
“From our point of view, this looks like preparation for a new war (…), and it is one of the key obstacles to the progress of the peace process,” Pashinjan said.
Armenia has feared that Azerbaijan will start the next military conflict over the Nakhichevan region. Nakhichevan belongs to Azerbaijan, but the region is located separately from the mother country, so to get there you have to either cross or go around Armenia.
Politico said the US Secretary of State in October by Anthony Blinken warned a small group of Democratic representatives that Azerbaijan might attack Armenia in the coming weeks to seize the Nakhchivan land link, the so-called Zangezur Corridor.
President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has previously said that Armenia should open land access to its southern border. He has threatened to resolve the issue with the use of force and said that the Zangezur corridor will be put into use “whether Armenia wants it or not”.
Zangezur’s the corridor would be an important trade route for Azerbaijan, which would connect it with Turkey more strongly than at present. Turkey shares a border with the Nakhicheva region, but not with the rest of Azerbaijan.
In addition to Turkey, Russia has also supported the trade route. Armenia and Iran, on the other hand, have opposed the corridor, among other things, because it might weaken the land connection between them.
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