Aliyev and Pashinyan meet briefly in Brussels

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had a brief meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the summit dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Eastern Partnership held in Brussels on Tuesday.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had a brief meeting with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the summit dedicated to the tenth anniversary of the Eastern Partnership held in Brussels on Tuesday.

“Yes, we briefly talked about the current situation,” Pashinyan was quoted as saying by Sputnik Armenia.

The settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has been the main topic in a short talk with Aliyev. Pashinyan said that the current position of Baku is the main obstacle to resolving the conflict.

"It is impossible to resolve any conflict by taking the interests of one of the parties alone. I think the biggest obstacle to resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is Azerbaijan's failure to negotiate with Karabakh," Pashinyan was quoted as saying by Radio Liberty Azerbaijani Service.

The Armenian prime minister added that the three parties, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh should take part in resolving the conflict.

Pashinyan said that it is not yet clear when the next meeting with Aliyev will take place, but he is convinced that the talks will continue.

Tense relations between Yerevan and Baku started to ease since the revolution changed the entire political dynamics in Armenia. Pashinyan’s rhetoric has been assessed as positive to resume the stalled Nagorno-Karabakh talks. Yet, the prime minister's position has not yet offered anything new from his predecessors.

Pashinyan has stated that he has no mandate to negotiate for Karabakh Armenians and that they should be involved directly in the talks. Azerbaijan considers this argument a radical change to the format of 25 years peaceful negotiations and therefore rejects it.

Baku says peace talks should only be conducted by Azerbaijan and Armenia under the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group.

The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict started in 1988. Armenian territorial claims later escalated into a full-fledged war between the two post-Soviet countries, killing some 30,000 people and leaving many more displaced.

Despite the ceasefire signed under the auspices of Russia in 1994, peace has yet to come to the region. Internationally facilitated negotiations have so far failed and the truce has been breached on many occasions.

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