A working group to prepare a peace agreement, the establishment of a commission on the delimitation of borders and on transport issues should be formed by the end of April, Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev said late Tuesday.
"I think that the working groups to be formed by the end of April on the delimitation of the border, as well as the working groups on the preparation of a peace agreement, should begin their work soon," Aliyev wrote on Twitter. "We look at this process with great hopes and do not waste time."
He reiterated that Azerbaijan made a proposal consisting of five principles to normalize relations between the two countries, and the Armenian side welcomed this proposal.
Aliyev’s words come after he and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian recently met in Brussels for rare talks mediated by European Council President Charles Michel.
The peace process aims to overcome a decadeslong conflict that has left thousands dead and erupted into an all-out war in 2020.
Saying that Baku’s contacts with the European Union have intensified since the war, Aliyev underlined that: "The European Union has also accepted the realities of the post-conflict period."
The two countries had been locked in a territorial dispute since the 1990s over Azerbaijan's region of Karabakh, previously referred to as Nagorno-Karabakh.
The mountainous region was at the center of a six-week war in 2020 that claimed more than 6,500 lives before it ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire agreement.
The pact saw Azerbaijan regain swathes of its previously Armenian occupied territories in what was seen in Armenia as a national humiliation, sparking weeks of mass anti-government protests, which continued during last week’s peace talks between Aliyev and Pashinian.
Zero results achieved
Prior to the 2020 war, diplomats from France, Russia and the United States – the so-called Minsk Group working under the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE) – had for decades led fruitless negotiations on the Karabakh settlement.
Aliyev emphasized that although the Minsk Group was active for years, it has failed to achieve any concrete results that would bring peace to the region.
"The Minsk Group was active for 28 years before the Second Karabakh War, and the co-chairs have made perhaps hundreds of visits to Azerbaijan and Armenia over the years. The result is obvious, the result is zero," he said.
He hailed the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) as a "major organization" and said: "During the occupation, the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation has repeatedly adopted resolutions that are fair and reflect our position."