Azatutyun.am. Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said on Tuesday that Armenia and Azerbaijan have continued to exchange proposals regarding a bilateral peace treaty despite what he described as Azerbaijani efforts to depopulate Nagorno-Karabakh.
Visiting Germany, Mirzoyan said Yerevan communicated “new proposals” to Baku even after he cancelled in December a planned trilateral meeting with his Azerbaijani and Russian counterparts in protest against the Azerbaijani blockade of the Lachin corridor.
“I should also inform you that a few days ago we received another response and proposals from Azerbaijan,” he told a joint news conference with German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock. “Again, this is an ongoing process, and we continue to work on the text, exchanging proposals and continuing the discussion in different, several stages.”
“It is very important to understand that even though the Lachin corridor is blocked and all other challenges remain, essentially the negotiation process is not at a standstill. Negotiations are continuing,” he said.
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Mirzoyan did not shed light on those proposals. Nor did he say if he could now agree to meet with Russia’s Sergei Lavrov and Azerbaijan’s Jeyhun Bayramov.
In a phone call with Bayramov last week, Lavrov said he is still ready to organize the trilateral talks in Moscow. They would focus on the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty, he said.
Azerbaijani leaders have said all along that the treaty must be based on key elements which it presented to Yerevan in March 2022. Those include mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity. This would presumably mean Armenian recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh.
Mirzoyan said in early December that the conflicting sides are “still far apart on many issues” relating to the peace accord.