A peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan could be inked before Baku hosts the UN’s COP29 climate conference next month, Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan said in an interview with the Financial Times.
Vahagn Khachaturyan told the Financial Times that while there were outstanding issues that still needed to be agreed, “we are approaching the end” of the discussions, adding that a deal could be signed before the UN climate conference in November. “It would be good to sign it by COP29,” he said. “But let’s not run ahead of time.”
Last month, Azerbaijan called for a “COP truce,” asking countries “to transcend political challenges, stand in unity and commit to the truce during the month of COP29”. The hosts of the UN’s flagship climate summit said they wanted to highlight the importance of peace, but have also been accused of delaying the peace talks. Azerbaijan was announced as the host of COP29 last December, just months after seizing Nagorno-Karabakh. Armenia had initially vetoed its neighbor’s application, but dropped this as part of a trade between the two countries that led to Baku releasing more than 30 Armenian prisoners of war.
Khachaturyan said discussions about prisoners of war did not form part of the peace agreement talks, but “they remain in our agenda”. Any peace agreement was unlikely to fully address all of both countries’ concerns initially, but could be built upon, he added.
Speaking on the sidelines of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference, where world leaders discussed climate and development issues, Khachaturyan said Armenia needed to make peace with its neighbors after the country — and Nagorno-Karabakh — had spent decades in a “warlike situation.” “ We need to be pragmatic and realistic. We need to live in peace . . . not only with Azerbaijan but all neighbors.”
Speaking about the inflow of refugees after Azerbaijan took control of Nagorno Karabakh, Khachaturyan said the roughly 100,000 refugees “came without anything” and that the process of integrating such a large number of displaced people was a work in progress. Armenia also plans to “keep its doors open” for refugees from Lebanon, where many ethnic Armenians live, if they are forced to leave as Israel steps up its campaign against Hizbollah, he said. “We will need to be ready for them.”
Khachaturyan also said Armenia and EU share similar values and that an EU monitoring mission in 2023 on the borders with Azerbaijan has helped reduce friction in the area. But he played down suggestions that Armenia would apply for EU membership in the near future, while adding that the country was not looking to cut off its relationship with Russia.
