KTBS
Day: December 26, 2023
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan on Tuesday discussed the peace process between their countries during a meeting in St. Petersburg, Russia on the margins of an Commonwealth of Independent States summit.
Pashinyan’s press secretary Nazeli Baghdasaryan told Azatutyun.am about the “informal meeting” saying the talks were “bilateral, meaning the two leaders talked without a third country mediator — in this case Russia — president.
“Issues related to the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agenda were discussed. The discussions were in a bilateral format,” Baghdasaryan said, without elaborating.
It was the first time the two leaders were meeting since Azerbaijan’s large-scale attack on Artsakh in September, which forced the displacement of more than 100,000 Artsakh residents. Aliyev and his foreign minister, Jeyhum Bayramov canceled scheduled meeting in Brussels and Washington, respectfully, scheduled after the September attack.
Earlier on Tuesday, Russian media outlets circulated a short video showing Pashinyan and Aliyev shaking hands during an excursion to the Tsarskoe Selo State Museum and Heritage Site in Saint Petersburg as CIS leader entered the venue ahead of the unofficial CIS summit.
President Vladimir Putin of Russia had invited the leaders of CIS countries — Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan — to discuss issues not in a meeting format, but during an excursion in the palace-park complexes of Saint Petersburg.
Pashinyan also met with President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, who last month hosted a meeting of the Collective Security Treaty Organization in Minsk. The Armenian prime minister did not attend that gathering.
The Kremlin’s spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told Russia’s Channel One television that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan have expressed interest in signing a peace deal.
“They are ready to conclude peace negotiations, issue a joint document, to sign the peace treaty,” Peskov said.
Pashinyan Warns of ‘Politicizing’ the EEU
Armenia will take over the rotating chairmanship of the Eurasian Economic Union from Russia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced in St. Petersburg on Monday as the Russia-led bloc convened its annual summit.
“We hope for the support and effective cooperation of the member states in the implementation of the tasks set before us. It is symbolic that the presidency of Armenia coincides with the tenth anniversary of the signing of the Treaty on the EAEU,” Pashinyan said in his address to the summit.
Pashinyan’s arrival in St. Petersburg on Monday ended his and the Armenian government’s effective boycott of Russia-led groups’ previous summits.
During his address to the EEU summit, Pashinyan decried attempts to politicize the economic bloc’s activities based on what he called “geopolitical” reasons.
Citing the EEU’s founding treaty signed by Russia, Armenia and the other member-states in 2013, Pashinyan said that the EEU must not have a “political and especially geopolitical agenda.”
“We continue to regard [the EEU] as such and to develop partnership within the framework of our economic cooperation in this context, seeking to thwart all attempts to politicize Eurasian integration,” Pashinyan said. “The EEU and its economic principles must not correlate with political ambitions.”
“The basic freedoms of trade and integration cannot and must not be limited due to political considerations. This would definitely lead to an erosion of the fundamental principles of the union,” he added.
YEREVAN (Azatutyun.am)—Azerbaijan announced the expulsion of two French diplomats on Tuesday after repeatedly accusing France of siding with Armenia in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said that it summoned French Ambassador Anne Boillon to express a “strong protest over the actions of two employees of the French Embassy” which are “incompatible with their diplomatic status.” The two were ordered to leave the country within 48 hours, it said without specifying those actions.
There was no immediate reaction from Paris to the move, and it was not immediately clear what prompted it. Tensions between the two countries have climbed in recent years, as France has stepped up support for Armenia and escalated its criticism of Azerbaijan.
Like other Western powers, France condemned Baku’s September 19-20 military offensive in Karabakh that restored Azerbaijani control over the region and forced its population to flee to Armenia. Paris also initiated an emergency session of the UN Security Council on the situation in Karabakh.
France has also pledged to provide military aid to Armenia, citing Azerbaijani threats to its territorial integrity. In late October, it became the first Western nation to sign arms deals with Yerevan.
Baku condemned those deals in November, saying that they will “bolster Armenia’s military potential and its ability to carry out destructive operations in the region.” Armenian officials countered that these and other arms acquisitions by Yerevan are a response to an Azerbaijani military build-up which has continued even after the 2020 war in Karabakh.
Earlier in October, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev cancelled a planned meeting in Spain with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, French President Emmanuel Macron, German Chancellor Olaf Scholz and European Union Council President Charles. He objected to Macron’s presence at the talks.
Speaking on December 15, Aliyev said that “some political leaders in France want to be more Armenian than the Armenians.” He had earlier accused Paris of fomenting “Armenian separatism” in Karabakh.
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