Friday, June 23 2023 11:23

ArmInfo.Azerbaijan's foreign minister has rejected a demand from Armenia to provide special  security guarantees for some 120,000 ethnic Armenians living in the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave ahead of a new round of peace talks, Reuters reports. 

Nagorno-Karabakh, internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan,  has been a source of conflict between the two Caucasus neighbours  since the years leading up to the collapse of the Soviet Union in  1991, and between ethnic Armenians and Turkic Azeris for well over a  century.

After heavy fighting and a Russian-brokered ceasefire, Azerbaijan in  2020 took over areas that had been controlled by ethnic Armenians in  and around the mountain enclave.

The two sides have since been discussing a peace deal in which they  would agree on borders, settle differences over the enclave, and  unfreeze relations.

In what looked like a breakthrough, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan  was quoted last month as saying Armenia did recognise that Karabakh  was part of Azerbaijan, but wanted Baku to provide the guarantees for  its ethnic Armenian population.

In an interview with Reuters, however, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister  Jeyhun Bayramov said such a guarantee was unnecessary, and the demand  amounted to interference in Azerbaijan's affairs.

"We don't accept such a precondition ... for a number of reasons," he  said.

"The most fundamental is the following: this is an internal,  sovereign issue. The Azerbaijan constitution and a number of  international conventions to which Azerbaijan is party provide all  the necessary conditions in order to guarantee the rights of this  population."

He said ethnic Armenians could still use and be educated in their own  language and preserve their culture if they integrated into Azeri  society and state structures like other ethnic and religious  minorities.

Bayramov said there had been "some progress" in peace talks, and that  Baku was keen to strike a deal, but also made comments that show how  wide the gulf remains before he meets his Armenian counterpart for  more talks in Washington next week:

"Why did it take the Armenian prime minister two-and-a-half years  (since the war ended) to say he actually recognised the sovereignty  and territorial integrity of Azerbaijan?"

Bayramov, who was in London to attend a conference about Ukraine's  recovery, complained too about the continued presence of thousands of  Armenian troops on Azeri territory.

Moscow - which has peacekeepers on the ground - and Washington and  the European Union are all trying separately to help ensure lasting  peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia, which have fought two wars  since the early 1990s and still have sporadic firefights.

Pashinyan is under pressure at home to protect the rights of the  ethnic Armenians living in the enclave as Baku pushes for ethnic  Armenian government and military structures to be dissolved and the  population to accept Azerbaijani passports.

Tensions have been raised by Baku installing a checkpoint on the  Lachin Corridor - the only road that connects the enclave with  Armenia - following months of disruption caused by people who called  themselves Azerbaijani environmental activists.

Baku says the checkpoint is necessary to prevent the smuggling of  military supplies into the enclave and illegally-mined materials out.  It denies Armenian allegations that it has imposed a blockade that  makes life miserable for Karabakh's inhabitants.

Ruben Vardanyan, a billionaire banker who was a top official in  Karabakh's separatist government until February, on Thursday accused  Baku of trying to "ethnically cleanse" the enclave by imposing what  he called a goods and energy blockade - allegations that Azerbaijan  denies.

Bayramov said a peace deal was within reach if Armenia was ready to  take certain steps.

"If there is a will not only to make statements but do some practical  steps, I think that potentially it's possible to reach an agreement  even earlier than the end of the year," he said.

"But if there's no real readiness ... then it might be later."