EU Council President: Looking forward to continuing Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation talks

EU Council President Charles Michel has said that he is looking forward to continuing discussions on the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation.

He made the remarks on his Twitter on May 30, Caliber.Az reports.

“Looking forward to continuing discussions on Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Chisinău. Essential to reconfirm respect for each other’s sovereignty and territorial integrity, advance on border delimitation, and reduce risks in border areas,” he tweeted.

The Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders last met in Moscow on May 25 and during the meeting, no peace treaty was signed.

On May 14, a trilateral meeting took place between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, EU Council President Charles Michel and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels. This was the first time the two leaders met in person since talks in Munich in February and after the two countries' foreign ministers' extensive discussions in Washington in early May.

After the Brussels talks, Charles Michel stressed that both sides recognised each other’s territorial integrity on the basis of the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration. Moreover, Michel’s statement also explicitly specifies the square kilometre area of both countries. This means Armenia has officially recognised the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast as part of Azerbaijan. On May 22, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan reconfirmed in Yerevan that his country recognises Azerbaijan within a territory of 86,600 square kilometres, including Karabakh and some enclaves.

On May 1-4, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan held four-day peace talks facilitated by US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken in Washington.  These talks, which represent the longest round of negotiations since the end of the Second Karabakh War in 2020, marked the third such ministerial meeting between Armenia and Azerbaijan as mediated by the United States since September 2022.

 On May 19, Bayramov and Mirzoyan met in Moscow. After the meeting of the two ministers, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that Armenia and Azerbaijan are close to agreeing an end to a blockade of transport links but more work is needed to seal a peace deal between the two countries.

Looking forward to continuing discussions on ARM AZ normalisation with @presidentaz and PM @NikolPashinyan in Chisinău.

Essential to reconfirm respect for each other’s sovereignty & territorial integrity, & to advance on border delimitation, also to reduce risks in border areas.

— Charles Michel (@CharlesMichel) May 30, 2023