Pashinyan, Aliyev Discuss Peace Process in St. Petersburg – Asbarez.com Asbarez Armenian News
Day: December 27, 2023
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan on Tuesday discussed the peace process between their countries during a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia on the margins of a Commonwealth of Independent States summit.
Pashinyan’s press secretary Nazeli Baghdasaryan told Azatutyun.am about the “informal meeting,” saying the talks were “bilateral, meaning the two leaders talked without a third country mediator — in this case Russia — president.
“Issues related to the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agenda were discussed. The discussions were in a bilateral format,” Baghdasaryan said, without elaborating.
It was the first time the two leaders were meeting since Azerbaijan’s large-scale attack on Artsakh in September, which forced the displacement of more than 100,000 Artsakh residents. Aliyev and his foreign minister, Jeyhum Bayramov, canceled scheduled meetings in Brussels and Washington, respectively, scheduled after the September attack.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russian media outlets circulated a short video showing Pashinyan and Aliyev shaking hands during an excursion to the Tsarskoe Selo State Museum and Heritage Site in Saint Petersburg as CIS leaders entered the venue ahead of the unofficial CIS summit.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia had invited the leaders of CIS countries — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — to discuss issues not in a meeting format, but during an excursion in the palace-park complexes of Saint Petersburg.
Pashinyan also met with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, who last month hosted a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Minsk. The Armenian prime minister did not attend that gathering.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s Channel One television that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan have expressed interest in signing a peace deal.
“They are ready to conclude peace negotiations, issue a joint document, to sign the peace treaty,” Peskov said.
1/7 The Prime Minister of Armenia and the President of Azerbaijan addressed peace-related issues in St. Petersburg, Russia, as conveyed by Prime Minister’s spokesperson Nazeli Baghdasaryan to RFE/RL. “During the informal summit of the CIS, informal contacts took place pic.twitter.com/jdhYe2dWbH
— Adnan Huseyn (@adnanhuseyn) December 27, 2023
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December 27, 2023 – 15:57 AMT
PanARMENIAN.Net – Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on Tuesday, December 27 during a summit of the leaders of ex-Soviet states in Saint Petersburg, an Armenian government spokeswoman said, RFE/RL’s Armenian service reports.
The official, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, said they discussed the “Armenian-Azerbaijan peace agenda” during their “unofficial contacts” there.
“The discussions took place in a bilateral format,” Baghdasaryan added without giving further details.
It was Aliyev’s and Pashinyan’s first face-to-face conversation since Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive that restored Azerbaijani control over Nagorno-Karabakh and forced the region’s population to flee to Armenia.
The two leaders previously met in Brussels in July for talks hosted by European Union Council President Charles Michel. Aliyev twice cancelled more such talks which Michel planned to organize in October.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov similarly withdrew from a November 20 meeting with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan in Washington. Baku accused the Western powers of pro-Armenian bias and proposed direct negotiations with Yerevan.
Pashinyan suggested on December 18 that Aliyev may be dragging his feet on a peace treaty with Armenia sought by the EU and the United States.
Russia has been very critical of the Western peace efforts, saying that they are primarily aimed at driving it out of the South Caucasus. On December 6, Moscow rebuked Yerevan for ignoring its recent offers to organize more Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations and warned that Pashinyan’s current preference of Western mediation may spell more trouble for the Armenian people.
It is not clear whether Russian President Vladimir Putin tried to hold a formal trilateral meeting with Aliyev and Pashinyan on the sidelines of Tuesday’s Commonwealth of Independent States summit. The Kremlin did not signal such attempts in the run-up to the summit.
#Iran|ian Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian has arrived in Yerevan. He’s going to hold talks with his #Armenia|n counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan.
On December 25, the Iranian minister spoke by phone with colleagues from #Russia and #Azerbaijan. pic.twitter.com/PnEAuqy1oD— Karina Karapetyan (@KarinaKarapety8) December 27, 2023