Former Artsakh State Minister: Yerevan and Baku will not sign peace agreement

YEREVAN, December 26. /ARKA/. There will be no peace document between Armenia and Azerbaijan, former Artsakh state minister and ex-ombudsman Artak Beglaryan said on Thursday.

"This possible document cannot be a peace treaty or agreement. At best, it will be a document on the restoration or normalization of diplomatic relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but nothing more," Beglaryan said.

According to him, a peace agreement implies a document that addresses and resolves all the key components of the conflict.

"At a minimum, all the major issues of this conflict should be addressed at a fundamental level. The issue of prisoners is one of the smallest. It is the easiest to resolve," the former state minister said.

The Armenian side, he added, has, for example, the issue of the return of the people of Artsakh to their homeland, the protection of their property, cultural heritage, and more.

Speaking at the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting on December 5, RA Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said that Armenia and Azerbaijan have made some progress toward signing a peace agreement, noting that the parties have already agreed on 15 of the 17 articles of the preamble and the draft agreement. With sufficient political will, it can be quickly finalized and signed.

Earlier, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that one of the disagreements concerns the non-deployment of third-country forces on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, and the second concerns the withdrawal of lawsuits filed against each other in international courts.