Official: Armenia, Azerbaijan May Sign Peace Treaty by End of 2023

By Staff, Agencies

Armenia and Azerbaijan may sign a peace treaty to end the decades-old conflict over the disputed Nagorno-Karabakh by the end of 2023, a senior Armenian official said on Sunday.

Armen Grigoryan, the secretary of Armenia's Security Council, told his country’s First Channel that Yerevan is determined to reach a peace treaty with Baku as soon as possible.

“Negotiations are going very intensively, if we maintain this intensity and there is strong support from the international community to achieve progress, then there is a chance to have a peace agreement by the end of the year,” Grigoryan said.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have been locked in a dispute over Nagorno-Karabakh for decades.

Karabakh is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, but it is mostly populated by ethnic Armenians that have resisted Azerbaijani rule since a separatist war there ended in 1994.

In 2020, the second Karabakh war broke out, killing more than 6,500 people on both sides during a six-week conflict. The war ended with a Russian-brokered ceasefire deal that saw Yerevan cede swathes of the Azerbaijani territory that it had been holding for several decades.

Both sides routinely trade accusations over ceasefire violations.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliyev have held several meetings, separately staged by Russia, the European Union and the US, as they seek to resolve their dispute.

Peace talks appeared to be making progress in recent weeks, with Pashinyan expressing his country’s readiness to recognize Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.