After a more than four-hour meeting on Wednesday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan emerged having agreed to continue talks between the two countries through their foreign ministers. European Council President Charles Michel, who hosted the talks, called for the release of Armenian prisoners of war.
The meeting decided that the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, will meet within a month to continue “objective negotiations on the drafting of a peace treaty,” the prime minister’s press service reported.
“Today, we agreed to intensify substantive work on the promotion of the peace treaty regulating interstate relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and have instructed foreign ministers to meet within a month to work on draft text,” Michel said in a statement issued after the meeting.
Issues related to the release of prisoners and the clarification of the fate of the missing people, border delimitation and border security, unblocking transit links the region, the normalization of Armenia-Azerbaijan relations, and the Nagorno Karabakh issue were discussed, according to Pashinyan’s press service.
Michel stated that they had a detailed discussion also on humanitarian issues, including demining, POWs and the fate of the missing. He “emphasized to Azerbaijan the importance of further release of Armenian captives. The EU will continue to deal with these issues,” said a statement issued by the European Council presidency.
“I would like to emphasize that it is important to prepare the populations of both sides for a long-term sustainable peace,” added Michel.
In this regard, the EU leader emphasized the importance of public messages, emphasizing that the EU is ready to further strengthen its support for the establishment of long-term sustainable peace. The EU will also continue to strive for economic development for the benefit of both countries and their peoples.
It was announced that the next meeting of a commission set to work of the delimitation and demarcation of borders will take place in Brussels in November. The commission, headed by the deputy prime ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia met on Monday in Moscow.
Pashinyan and Aliyev also are scheduled to meet in November in Brussels.
