Armenian Foreign Ministry on Negotiations Held in the US

The delegations led by the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, have made progress on certain articles of the draft bilateral agreement on "Establishing Peace and Inter-State Relations" during their discussions in Washington. At the same time, they noted that positions on a number of key issues remain divergent.

This was reported by the press service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry, summarizing the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations held in the United States.

The ministers expressed their views on the current situation and provided their positions regarding existing issues related to the normalization of relations, according to the statement from the Armenian Foreign Ministry.

It was noted that Mirzoyan and Bayramov expressed their gratitude to the American side for hosting the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The parties agreed to continue discussions.

It is worth recalling that in 2021, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev expressed readiness to sign a peace treaty with Armenia. In March 2022, Baku presented a five-point proposal to Yerevan for the normalization of relations. The Armenian side made modifications and sent its version in response. Since then, several rounds of negotiations have taken place at various levels between the parties.

On December 22, 2022, Yerevan refused to participate in a meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia, Russia, and Azerbaijan due to the situation around the Lachin corridor. Since then, the issue has faced a deadlock.

On April 20, 2023, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told reporters in the National Assembly that he believes in a peace agenda, but it is crucial that guarantees are also included in the negotiations. On April 27, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov announced that the United States had returned Armenia to the negotiating table.

On May 1, a bilateral meeting took place in Arlington, involving Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan. The same day in Washington, a trilateral meeting was held between Ararat Mirzoyan, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov. The negotiations, which lasted several days, concluded on May 4.