Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (L) is welcomed by the President of the European Council Charles Michel (C) ahead of a meeting at the European Council in Brussels, Belgium, May 22, 2022. (EPA Photo)
The Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers held bilateral talks for the first time since the 2020 war between the archrivals over the Karabakh region.
Held in the Georgian capital Tbilisi, the talks are expected to build on an agreement the Caucasus countries' leaders reached under EU mediation in May to "advance discussions" on a peace treaty.
"This is the first meeting between the ministers, and we hope that it will bring in a result," Azerbaijan's President Ilham Aliyev said on Friday.
The atmosphere was tense ahead of the meeting between Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov as both countries' defence ministries traded accusations of initiating a shootout at their shared border.
Armenia and Azerbaijan fought two wars – in 2020 and in the 1990s – over Azerbaijan's region of Karabakh, which was illegally occupied by Armenia. In December, the two countries appointed special envoys to help normalize relations, a year after Armenia lost to Turkey's ally Azerbaijan.
Six weeks of fighting in autumn 2020 claimed more than 6,500 lives and ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire agreement.
Under the deal, Armenia ceded swathes of Azerbaijani territory it had illegally occupied for decades, and Russia deployed some 2,000 peacekeepers to oversee the fragile truce.
Following its invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, increasingly isolated Moscow may be losing its status as a primary mediator in the conflict.
Turkey and the European Union have since led the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process, which involves peace talks, border delimitation and the reopening of transport links.
Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met in Brussels in April and May and European Council President Charles Michel has said their next meeting is scheduled for July or August.
Relations between the two former Soviet countries have been tense since 1991 when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions. The ensuing conflict claimed around 30,000 lives and the mass displacement of Azerbaijanis.
New clashes erupted in September 2020, and the 44-day conflict saw Azerbaijan liberate several cities and over 300 settlements and villages that were occupied by Armenia for almost 30 years.
After the Nagorno-Karabakh region was liberated from the illegal Armenian occupation this past November, it entered a period of economic revival thanks to new transportation links.
According to the cease-fire deal, all transportation lines that were closed due to the Karabakh conflict will reopen. This brought the Zangezur corridor to the forefront.