Azerbaijan has said that the return of its lands is a necessary precondition for a peace deal to end three decades of conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Azerbaijan retook in September.
REUTERS MARCH 19, 2024 08:03
Updated: MARCH 19, 2024 10:00Protesters gather near the government building, after Azerbaijan launched a military operation in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, in Yerevan, Armenia, September 19, 2023(photo credit: Vahram Baghdasaryan/Photolure via REUTERS)Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Armenia may face a war with Azerbaijan if it does not compromise with Baku on returning some strategic Azerbaijani territories that Armenia has controlled since the early 1990s.
Pashinyan was speaking during a Monday meeting with residents of border areas in northern Armenia’s Tavush region, close to a string of deserted Azerbaijani villages that Yerevan has controlled since the opening phases of the countries’ three-decade-long conflict in the early 1990s.
TASS quoted Pashinyan as saying in a video of the meeting circulated by his government: “Now we can leave here, let’s go and tell [Azerbaijan] that no, we are not going to do anything. This means that at the end of the week a war will begin.”
Pashinyan has repeatedly signaled in recent weeks that he is willing to return the villages to Azerbaijan, which are important for Yerevan, as they control its main road northwards to the border with Georgia.
Azerbaijan has said that the return of its lands is a necessary precondition for a peace deal to end three decades of conflict over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan retook in September.
ARMENIAN SOLDIERS ride in the back of a truck in the breakaway region of Nagorno Karabakh last week. The Caucasus region experienced several rounds of conflict after the collapse of the Soviet Union, and the conflict between Azerbaijan and Armenia is one of the most notable disputes. (credit: VAHRAM BAGHDASARYAN/REUTERS)
Wanting to sign a peace treaty
The two sides have said they want to sign a formal peace treaty, but talks have become bogged down in issues including demarcation of the countries’ 1000km (620 mile) border, which is closed and heavily militarized.
Both Armenia and Azerbaijan continue to occupy lands that are internationally recognized as part of the other’s territory.
Content retrieved from: https://www.jpost.com/breaking-news/article-792647.
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