Speaking in Tbilisi on Thursday, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said they would sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan soon. Yerevan and Baku "in the coming month shall sign an agreement on peace and the establishment of relations," Pashinyan said in an address to an international economic forum in the Georgian capital. Pashinyan said that Armenia also hopes to open its border with Türkiye, a close ally to Azerbaijan, to citizens of third countries.
The two countries fought a war in 2020 over Karabakh, an Azerbaijani region captured by Armenia decades ago. Azerbaijan retook Karabakh and, most recently, cleared out Armenian separatists in the region in a counterterrorism operation. Baku and Yerevan sought to end their conflict with a peace deal, but the progress has been slow. The two sides last held talks in Tehran on Monday at a meeting attended by representatives from Türkiye and Russia.
Iran and Russia on Monday denounced European and U.S. interference in tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan at a meeting in Tehran aimed at finding a solution without the West. In a joint final declaration, the participants reiterated the "importance of peaceful settlement of disputes, respect for sovereignty, political independence, territorial integrity... and non-interference in internal affairs."
Since Moscow brokered a 2020 ceasefire between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the European Union and the U.S. have made their own efforts to mediate a peace agreement between the two sides. Russia, the traditional power broker in the region, has seen its role diminish since it invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
