South Caucasus rivals Azerbaijan and Armenia are sending their top diplomats to the Kazakh city of Almaty this week as they work to hammer out a peace agreement and demarcate their troubled border.
Kazakh Foreign Ministry spokesperson Aybek Smadiyarov on Monday confirmed during a press briefing in the capital Astana that the meeting will take place on May 10 "in accordance with previously reached agreements."
The date has also been confirmed by the Azerbaijani and Armenian Foreign Ministries.
Last Wednesday, Kazakhstan's President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev welcomed Azerbaijan and Armenia's agreement to hold talks at the level of foreign ministers in Almaty, expressing that it will serve to implement bilateral agreements and "contribute to the speedy establishment of a strong and long-term peace in the South Caucasus."
Azerbaijan and Armenia are currently working to normalize their relations after Azerbaijan regained full control of the Karabakh province that had been under the illegal occupation of Armenia-backed ethnic Armenian separatists since the 1990s.
A six-week war in 2020 resulted in Azerbaijan liberating large parts of the breakaway region, and in September 2023, Azerbaijani forces launched a lighting blitz that forced Karabakh's Armenian "authorities" to capitulate in negotiations mediated by Russian forces.
Since December, the sides have been struggling to begin negotiations on a peace treaty, key parts for which were demarcating borders and establishing regional transport corridors through each other's territory.
In a historic breakthrough, the neighbors late last month reached an agreement over a stretch of border that would cut through four Azeri villages in Armenia's Tavush province, meaning that Armenia would return some more territory to Azerbaijan. Authorities on both sides announced they had installed the first border marker, although it wasn’t immediately clear where exactly it was placed.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev recently said Baku and Yerevan were edging closer to a common understanding of what a peace agreement might look like.
“We are close and maybe closer than ever before (to signing a peace agreement),” Aliyev said.
Last month, Armenia’s prime minister said the Caucasus nation needs to quickly define the border with Azerbaijan to avoid a new round of hostilities.
The four abandoned settlements that are to be returned to Azerbaijan, Lower Askipara, Baghanis Ayrum, Kheirimly and Gizilhajili, were taken over by Armenian forces in the 1990s, forcing their ethnic Azerbaijani residents to flee.
The area has strategic importance for landlocked Armenia. Several small sections of the highway to Georgia, vital for the country's foreign trade, could end up in the territory to be handed back to Azerbaijan. The delimited border will also run close to a major Russian gas pipeline, and the area has advantageous military positions.
Earlier in April, Russia began withdrawing its forces from Karabakh, where they have been stationed as peacekeepers under a truce brokered by Moscow that ended the 2020 war.
