ISTANBUL
Armenia said on Thursday that it hopes a draft peace agreement with neighboring Azerbaijan will be completed in the “next few months.”
“We are now working on a draft agreement on peace and the settlement of relations with Azerbaijan, I hope that this process will be completed in the next few months,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a speech at a Silk Road forum in the Georgian capital Tbilisi.
Pashinyan added that he hopes there will be developments in the near future towards opening the Turkish-Armenian border for citizens of third countries and for holders of diplomatic passports.
“This too will bring a positive stimulus for the whole region,” he added.
Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.
Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during a war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement and also opened the door to normalization.
This September, the Azerbaijani army initiated an anti-terrorism operation in Karabakh to establish constitutional order in the region, after which illegal separatist forces in the region surrendered.
Azerbaijan, having now established full sovereignty in the region, has reiterated its call on the Armenian population in Karabakh to become part of Azerbaijani society.
Peace between the two former Soviet republics has broader implications, as leaders in neighboring Türkiye have said normalization with Armenia depends in part on Yerevan reaching peace with Baku.
