News - Armenia FM: Azerbaijan must return to negotiating table

Azerbaijan must return to the negotiation table. Armenian Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan said this at Wednesday’s joint news conference with his visiting Estonian colleague, Margus Tsahkna, talking about the preparation of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. According to Mirzoyan, most of the respective preparations has been done, and they need to meet and finalize this treaty. As for the participation of mediators, the Armenian FM said the main issue is the content of this treaty. "If we look carefully, in the last two years they have been direct bilateral negotiations, the organizing of the meetings has been facilitated by the international community," said Mirzoyan. According to him, if we return to the process, we will be able to move forward quickly, but now there is no political will in the leadership of Azerbaijan. Regarding the agreement on the exchange of detainees, the Armenian FM assured that these agreements are valid, and there is no change in them. "Everything is going according to the agreed plan. The declaration had two components: the release of captives and a conference. The conference ended yesterday. Today we can wait for the implementation of the second component. There are no grounds to claim that the Azerbaijani side will not comply," Mirzoyan said. He added, however, that these are not the only steps that are being discussed. "We made an initiative to withdraw the troops from the border, and we believe that it will have a positive effect," Armenian FM said, but he did not claim that there are agreed approaches on that point.