German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock on Friday urged arch-foes Armenia and Azerbaijan to resume internationally mediated peace talks, weeks afters Baku recaptured Nagorno-Karabakh from Armenian separatists.
The Caucasus neighbours have been locked in a decades-long conflict for control of Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated region, which Baku reclaimed in a lightning offensive in September.
Western-mediated negotiations to broker a wider comprehensive peace agreement between the two sides have so far failed to produce a breakthrough.
On a visit to Armenia on Friday, Baerbock said “the moderation efforts by the president of the European Council Charles Michel are a bridge and the fastest way to peace”.
“That is why it is so important that a new round of negotiations takes place,” she said, adding that “Germany stands by your side as an honest broker between Armenia and Azerbaijan”.
At a press conference in Yerevan alongside her Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan, Baerbock said: the “territorial integrity of Armenia and Azerbaijan … is the basis for any negotiations for peace.”
“We want to accompany you on this path to a good future in the South Caucasus,” she said, urging both sides to “use this window for a negotiated peace.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have held several rounds of talks under EU mediation and both leaders have said a peace treaty could be signed in the coming months.
AFP