Armenia offers peace deal to Azerbaijan

The Armenian government has offered to sign a 16-article peace agreement with Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced during a parliamentary session on Wednesday. 

According to the Armenian leader, Yerevan and Baku cannot currently sign a treaty that would resolve all the issues between the two countries. Instead, he has proposed to sign off on a deal that would cover areas that the two sides have already agreed upon. 

Pashinyan’s offer comes as Armenia and Azerbaijan have for months been engaged in peace talks following the escalation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region last year. The two sides were at odds over control of the disputed territory for decades and engaged in a series of bloody conflicts over its control. 

The region, predominantly populated by ethnic Armenians, was previously under the de facto control of Yerevan. However, in 2023, Baku launched a large-scale offensive and took over the territory, later dissolving the self-proclaimed Republic of Nagorno Karabakh. Most of the Armenians living in the region subsequently fled.

Since then, Yerevan and Baku have been attempting to reach a conclusive peace deal. 

During a visit to Baku last month, Russian President Vladimir Putin stated that Moscow is prepared to play a role in helping to resolve the long-running feud between the two countries. 

“If we could do anything to facilitate the signing of a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia, to bring the matter closer to delimitation and demarcation of the border, to unblock… the logistics and economics, we would be very happy to do so,” the Russian leader told reporters.