YEREVAN, October 23. /TASS/. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s meeting with Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev is not being planned, Armenian Foreign Ministry Spokesman Vahan Hunanyan wrote on his Facebook account on Saturday.
"I would like to emphasize that at the moment no meetings between the Armenian prime minister and the president of Azerbaijan are planned. There are proposals for various meetings in different formats, which are being negotiated," he noted.
According to the diplomat, "the rumors spread by certain quarters on this topic are obviously provocative and false." At the same time, he stressed, "Pashinyan has reiterated that Armenia is ready to resume highest-level talks to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan within the mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs."
The highland region of Nagorno-Karabakh has been disputed by Baku and Yerevan since February 1988 when the region announced its withdrawal from the Azerbaijan Soviet Socialist Republic. Renewed clashes between Azerbaijan and Armenia erupted on September 27, 2020, with intense battles raging in the disputed region of Nagorno-Karabakh.
On November 9, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signed a joint statement on a complete ceasefire in Nagorno-Karabakh starting from November 10. According to the statement, the Azerbaijani and Armenian sides would maintain the positions that they had held and then the Armenian forces would turn over control of certain districts to Azerbaijan. In addition, Russian peacekeepers were deployed along the contact line and to the Lachin corridor, which links Nagorno-Karabakh to Armenia.
On January 11, Putin, Aliyev and Pashinyan signed a joint statement at the talks in Moscow. The statement stipulates that a working group chaired by deputy prime ministers of the three countries should be established to focus on mending the transport and economic ties in the region.