"There is both regression and progress on a peace treaty" - Armenian Security Council Secretary
Armen Grigoryan on a peace treaty
Official Yerevan responded in writing to the peace treaty proposals received from Baku on January 4 and now awaits the response of the Azerbaijani side. Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan reported this yesterday.
“There are issues on which agreements were reached during oral negotiations, but we saw certain deviations in the text of the peace agreement. In general, there are still points on which we have moved forward,” Grigoryan said.
He did not disclose other details, proceeding “solely from negotiation ethics”. According to him, there are positive signs and the parties expect “to finalize and sign the peace agreement in the shortest possible time.”
Recently, Baku has been talking about the expediency of negotiating a peace treaty in a bilateral format, i.e. without mediators. It is still unclear whether this approach is acceptable to the Armenian authorities. Sargis Khandanyan, head of the Armenian parliament’s foreign relations commission, said:
“Armenia has not yet received such a direct proposal with specific conditions, venue and time. When there will be such a proposal, the Armenian side will think whether to accept or reject it. We cannot consider public statements as concrete proposals.”
“A document contrary to Armenia’s interests cannot be signed”
Some opposition members of the Armenian parliament had an opportunity to familiarize themselves with the preliminary version of the text of the peace agreement and claim that it outlines only the interests of Azerbaijan. The Secretary of the Security Council replied that Armenia’s interests are to protect the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the country through the peace agreement, and the Armenian side is negotiating exactly in this direction.
“I have no doubt that if we manage to sign a peace agreement, it will fully comply with Armenia’s interests,” he said.
According to Grigoryan, the Azerbaijani side verbally assured that it accepts four principles regarding the unblocking of transport in the region, which are important for Armenia. They are sovereignty, jurisdiction, reciprocity and equality. The Secretary of the Security Council assures that they will be included in the text of the peace agreement as well:
“Recognition of these four principles means the exclusion of any corridor logic [providing Azerbaijan with a “corridor” for communication with Nakhichevan, i.e. a road that Armenia will not control is excluded].“
Boundary delimitation commission to meet at the end of January
The Secretary of the Security Council said that there is an agreement on a meeting of the delimitation commission later this month:
“We hope that the meeting will take place.”
The commission is headed by Armenian Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan and Azerbaijani Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev. The five previous meetings were held in Moscow, Brussels and even on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. The latest meeting was held on the border on November 30 for the first time without the participation of mediators.
It was reported that in the course of the meeting, the sides tentatively agreed on the procedure for organizing and holding the sessions of the commissions and joint working meetings. On December 14, the Armenian government approved it. On the same day, the Prime Minister of Azerbaijan also signed a similar document.
Will there be a meeting in Washington, D.C.?
Grigoryan did not give a direct answer to this question. He only said that the American co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group Louis Bono came to Armenia to organize a trilateral meeting in the United States, Armenia agreed to participate.
Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan and US Senior Adviser for Caucasus Negotiations Louis Bono met in Yerevan on January 8. It was reported from the Security Council that they discussed
- the process of settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations,
- the results of the recent negotiations and the implementation of the agreements reached during them.
“Armen Grigoryan once again reaffirmed the Armenian side’s commitment to the establishment of long-term and comprehensive peace in the region,” the Security Council said in a statement.
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Armen Grigoryan on the peace treaty
