Another meeting between foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, ended Thursday with an announcement of both sides pledging to work toward a peace agreement between the two countries.
The meeting in New York was initiated and attended by Secretary of State Antony Blinken on the margins of the United Nations General Assembly currently underway.
“The Parties agreed to put additional efforts towards the conclusion of the Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations in the shortest possible period,” said an identical statement issued by the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministries following the meeting.
State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller said that Blinken “commended both ministers on the progress Armenia and Azerbaijan have made toward a durable and dignified peace and encouraged continued progress by both countries to finalize an agreement as soon as possible.”
“The Secretary underscored that a peace agreement would bring increased stability and prosperity to the region,” Miller added.
Yet, hours before the Mirzoyan-Bayramov meeting, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry spokesperson Aykhan Hajizada, in a tersely-worded post on social media, called on Armenia to end what he called “territorial claims” against Azerbaijan.
Hajizada urged Yerevan to “denounce claims against the territories of neighbouring states not only in words but also with actions.”
The Azerbaijani spokesperson was responding to another post from the German Foreign Office, which took to social media to voice support to “sustainable peace” between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“A year ago, Nagorno-Karabakh was once again the scene of military conflict. Thousands of people fled their homes toward Armenia,” the German Foreign Office said in its post, adding that, since then, “Armenia and #Azerbaijan have continuously worked to live side by side and have started peace talks.”
“We are committed to the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both countries. We support efforts for sustainable peace,” the German Foreign Office post continued, adding that Germany’s Foreign Minister, Annalena Baerbock, met with Mirzoyan in New York to discuss “ways to get there.”
In response to the German Foreign Office post, Hajizada said that “a year ago, Azerbaijan has ended the Armenia’s illegal military presence and the separatist regime they have sustained in” in Karabakh, adding that “the conflict started as a result of the military aggression, and ethnic cleansing of Azerbaijanis by Armenia 30 years ago.”
“Conflict has ended, when Azerbaijan has restored its territorial integrity and sovereignty,” Hajizada said in his post headlined “as a reminder” to Baerbock, the German foreign minister. “The departure of Armenians was their own choice that Azerbaijani side has discouraged not to do so.”
