Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (Photo: AFP).
Speaking in a meeting with residents of Voskepar village in the Tavush region bordering Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said, “we need to make efforts to quickly delimit the border with neighboring Azerbaijan to avoid another round of conflict.” new".
“Armenia's refusal to demarcate the border could trigger a new confrontation. That means a war could break out over the weekend,” the leader warned.
He noted that border delimitation must be based on mutual recognition of the territorial integrity of Armenia and Azerbaijan based on the former Soviet map from 1991, when both were part of the Soviet Union.
Prime Minister Pashinyan also emphasized Armenia's intention to strengthen close relations with the West when he welcomed NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg on March 19.
“We want to continue and develop the existing political dialogue, and expand our partnership with NATO and some members of the alliance,” Prime Minister Pashinyan said, adding that Yerevan would welcome NATO's efforts to help normalize relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “We expect strong support from the international community, including NATO, for the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan.”
There is currently no information on Azerbaijan's reaction to Prime Minister Pashinyan's above statement. Previously, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said on March 17 that Azerbaijan "is in an active phase of peace negotiations with Armenia".
Azerbaijan emphasizes that Armenia's return of land is a necessary precondition for a peace agreement to end the territorial conflict.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have a long history of territorial disputes. The Tavush region is close to a series of abandoned Azerbaijani villages that Armenia has controlled since the beginning of the early 1990 conflict between the two countries.
Last year, Azerbaijan launched a lightning military campaign to reclaim the Nagorno-Karabakh region, ending three decades of control there by ethnic Armenian separatists.
