President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan on Monday hailed the border delimitation process with Armenia, saying that this process will have beneficial opportunities.
As a result of the process, which began on April 19, Armenia’s government ceded four villages in the Tavush Province to Azerbaijan, without any guarantees from Baku that Azerbaijan with withdraw from Armenian territories currently under its control.
“At this juncture there are beneficial opportunities for advancing the peace agenda,” Aliyev said during a meeting with Latvia’s parliament speaker in Baku on Monday.
“After Azerbaijan reclaimed its sovereignty and territorial integrity, there is a historic opportunity for peace in the region,” Aliyev added, emphasizing the “bilateral efforts, especially in the delimitation and demarcation of borders.”
Despite opposition protests demanding an end to the border delimitation and demarcation process, the Armenian government, last week, announced that it officially cemented the ceding of four villages in the Tavush Province to Azerbaijan by signing an agreement.
Armenia’s foreign ministry issued a statement at the time announcing that the deputy prime ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan met again and signed an agreement on the coordinates of relevant demarcated sections of the border.
The Armenian government claims that the four villages in questions were captured by Armenian forces in 1991 to 1992 and are largely uninhabited. During the same time period, Azerbaijan seized large swathes of agricultural land belonging to several Tavush villages. None of that land will be given back to Armenia under the terms of the April 19 border deal.
Aliyev hailed the April 19 deal as “yet another victory” for Azerbaijan during a speech earlier this month.
“We showed the enemy its place, and today the enemy is powerless against us,” Aliyev added.