Armenian, Azeri FMs Meet in Germany

BERLIN — Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov began on Wednesday two-day negotiations in Berlin aimed at narrowing their countries’ differences on a bilateral peace treaty.

Mirzoyan and Bayramov were joined by German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock later in the day. They also met Baerbock separately shortly before the trilateral talks.

During bilateral meeting between Armenian and German Foreign Minister, issues on regional security, and normalization process of Armenia-Azerbaijan  were discussed.

Ararat Mirzoyan briefed his counterpart on the approaches of Armenia to the key issues of the normalization process, which are also reflected in the Statement adopted as a result of the quadrilateral meeting held in Granada in October 2023, among others including the border delimitation process based on the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration and unblocking of regional communications under the sovereignty and jurisdiction of states and based on principles of reciprocity and equality.

German Chancellor Olaf Scholz similarly hosted talks between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of an international security conference in Munich on February 17. Both Aliyev and Pashinian sounded satisfied with that meeting.

However, Pashinyan said last week that Azerbaijan remains reluctant to recognize Armenia’s borders “without ambiguity” and is planning military aggression against his country.

Sargis Khandanyan, the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on foreign relations, had no high expectations from the Berlin talks. He accused Baku of walking away from understandings on the key parameters of the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty reached by Pashinuyan and Aliyev during their previous meetings.

Mirzoyan spoke last month of a “significant regression” in Azerbaijan’s position on the treaty. One of his deputies, Vahan Kostanyan, said on February 22 that that Baku and Yerevan disagree on some key provisions of the treaty.