US Secretary of State Antony Blinken with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov @ Official Photo .
As talks between Yerevan and Baku continue, with a spate of meetings between the leaders scheduled in the near future, following last week’s bilateral negotiations between the two foreign ministers in the United States, Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa has published another of my updates on the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process.
On 1 May 2023, the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov were hosted in the United States by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. Though some had speculated that such a meeting was being planned, what appeared to be a general stagnation in the normalisation process between the two countries meant that few expected it.
Nonetheless, a day before the ministers and their delegations headed off to Washington D.C., the Azerbaijani Turan News Agency and Armenian Hraparak both published pieces saying that the meeting would take place. Turan also said its sources had informed them that the meeting could last ‘several days,’ an unprecedented development since the 2020 war.
An announcement posted on the website of the Armenian National Assembly confirmed that the same day – parliamentary vice-president Ruben Rubinyan would join Mirzoyan as part of the delegation in the U.S. from 29 April to 5 May. There was also speculation that a ‘roadmap’ towards the normalisation of relations could be signed, though none was announced or signed.
Speaking in Yerevan on 28 April, French foreign minister Catherine Colonna had also said that there was the possibility Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev could meet on the sidelines of the upcoming second European Political Community (EPC) event in Chisinau, Moldova, on 1 June. Colonna had already visited Baku the same week.
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On 8 May, the Financial Times reported that sources told it that Aliyev and Pashinyan would meet once again for talks facilitated by European Council President Charles Michel this weekend. It also reported that the 1 June meeting on the sidelines of the EPC is still on the cards, adding that German chancellor Olaf Scholz and French president Emmanuel Macron would join them.
The full article can be read here.
