EU and US welcome joint assertion wherein two sides comply with change prisoners of conflict and Armenia backs Azerbaijan COP29 bid.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have mentioned they may change prisoners of conflict and work in the direction of normalising their relations, in a transfer welcomed by the European Union and the USA.
The 2 nations have been locked in a decades-long battle over Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan reclaimed after a lightning offensive towards Armenian separatists in September.
In a joint assertion issued late on Thursday night time, the 2 sides mentioned that they had agreed to grab “a historic probability to attain a long-awaited peace within the area” and hoped to signal a peace treaty earlier than the tip of the 12 months.
“The 2 nations reconfirm their intention to normalise relations and to achieve the peace treaty on the premise of respect for the ideas of sovereignty and territorial integrity,” the assertion added.
September’s Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh ended ethnic Armenians’ three many years of rule of the territory and led most of its 120,000 residents to flee the area, which is internationally recognised as a part of Azerbaijan.
Till Thursday’s announcement, the 2 nations had argued bitterly on the define of a peace course of amid mutual mistrust.
The assertion mentioned Baku will free 32 Armenian prisoners of conflict, whereas Yerevan will launch two Azerbaijani servicemen, in agreements reached throughout talks between the workplace of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the administration of Azerbaijan President Ilham Aliyev.
The 2 nations additionally mentioned they “will proceed their discussions concerning the implementation of extra confidence-building measures, efficient within the close to future, and name on the worldwide group to help their efforts”.
Armenia’s overseas ministry mentioned Yerevan had “responded positively to the provide of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken to organise the assembly of the overseas ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington”.
European Council President Charles Michel described the developments as a “main breakthrough in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations” whereas the US welcomed the assertion and the prisoner change.
“This dedication represents an necessary confidence-building measure as the perimeters work to finalise a peace settlement and normalise relations,” State Division spokesman Matthew Miller mentioned in an announcement.
As a part of the deal, Armenia additionally agreed to carry its objections to Azerbaijan internet hosting subsequent 12 months’s worldwide convention on local weather change.
Nations had been unable to agree on an jap European host for the 2024 local weather talks, with Russia vetoing nations within the EU and Azerbaijan and Armenia rejecting every others’ bids. A call on the assembly’s location and presidency is due inside the subsequent week.
The joint assertion mentioned that “the Republic of Armenia helps the bid of the Republic of Azerbaijan to host the twenty ninth Session of the Convention of Events [COP29] to the UN Framework Conference on Local weather Change, by withdrawing its personal candidacy”.
Aliyev and Pashinyan have met on a number of events for EU-mediated normalisation talks, however the course of had stalled over the past two months as two rounds of negotiations did not happen.
Azerbaijan had refused to take part in talks with Armenia that had been deliberate within the US on November 20, over what it mentioned was Washington’s “biased” place.
In October, Aliyev declined to attend a spherical of negotiations with Pashinyan in Spain, that point accusing France of bias.
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had been scheduled to affix Michel as mediators at these talks.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have been at odds for greater than three many years over Nagorno-Karabakh, which freed itself from Baku’s management in a bloody ethnic battle that accompanied the 1991 collapse of the Soviet Union, surviving with monetary, army and diplomatic help from Yerevan.
A second conflict erupted in 2020 earlier than Azerbaijan’s September 19 assault led Armenian separatists to put down their arms after only a single day of combating.
