Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan agreed to maintain direct contact and negotiations at a meeting in in the United Arab Emirates (UAE), Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said Thursday, as the two South Caucasus neighbors work to hash out a peace deal after nearly four decades of conflict.
The two leaders held a “constructive” meeting that included extensive discussions on issues such as border demarcation, the opening and development of the Zangezur Corridor, and the initialing of the peace agreement, the ministry said.
The South Caucasus countries have fought a series of wars since the late 1980s when Karabakh, a region recognized as part of Azerbaijan, broke away from Azerbaijan with support from Armenia.
In a major breakthrough, the countries said in March they had finalized a draft peace deal. But the timeline for signing it remains uncertain and cease-fire violations along their closed and heavily militarized border surged soon after the draft deal was announced. There have been no reported violations recently.
The meeting in Abu Dhabi was the two leaders' first formal encounter since they agreed on the draft text of the peace agreement in March.
Baku said the Aliyev and Pashinyan confirmed that “bilateral negotiations represent the most efficient format to address all issues concerning the normalization process, and on this basis, it was agreed to continue such result-oriented dialogue.”
It further said that Aliyev and Pashinyan took note of the progress made in the ongoing border delimitation process, noting that they instructed their delegations to continue practical work on this.
It also said that both sides agreed to continue bilateral negotiations and confidence-building measures, adding that Aliyev and Pashinyan thanked UAE President Sheikh Mohamed bin Zayed Al Nahyan for his warm hospitality and organizing the meeting.
An identical statement was also released by the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
The Kremlin said it welcomed the meeting between Aliyev and Pashinyan and fully supported the talks between the two former Soviet countries.
Pashinyan, in a rare bilateral visit to Türkiye last month, met President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who said he would support Yerevan's peace efforts with Baku. The United States has also recently signaled its hopes for a deal.
Peace talks began after Azerbaijan recaptured Karabakh in September 2023.
Azerbaijan has said it wants Armenia to change its constitution, which it says makes implicit claims to its territory.
Yerevan denies this, but Pashinyan has repeatedly stressed, most recently this week, that the South Caucasus country's founding charter needs to be updated.
Azerbaijan also asked for the Zangezur Corridor through Armenia, linking the bulk of its territory to Nakhchivan, an Azerbaijani enclave that borders Baku's ally, Türkiye.
Pashinyan and Aliyev last met in May on the sidelines of the European Political Community summit in Tirana. They discussed the peace process, but their meeting – a chat around a coffee table – was informal.
