Secretary of State Antony Blinken welcomes foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Ararat Mirzoyan (left) and Jeyhun Bayramov (right) in Washington on May 1
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday acknowledged and confirmed that the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are negotiating over a specific document during their ongoing talks in Washington.
He said, however, that there are no new provisions in the said document, “because I have already spoken about it publicly.”
In discussing the talks in Washington between Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, which entered the third day, Luis Bono, the State Department’s Senior Advisor for Caucasus Negotiations and the U.S. Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group told Voice of America on Tuesday that the document being discussed is called “Agreement on the Normalization of Relations.”
He added that the “U.S. is seeking for the parties to normalize their relations, to be able to live together, to strengthen economic ties and even their collective security in the region.”
Speaking at Parliament on Wednesday, Pashinyan said that he had given specific instruction to Armenia’s negotiators, adding that he had emphasized that he—himself—would be signing the eventual peace deal with Azerbaijan.
“I told the negotiating team in Washington to speak freely within the framework of our publicly expressed opinions,” Pashinyan said, adding that during the talks “new ideas may and new components may emerge.”
In the absence of official reports from Yerevan, there has been speculation that a final document may be signed as early as June 1 in Cisinau, the capital of Moldova.
“Our position is as follows: the government of the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Armenia must declare that they not only do not have territorial aspirations, but also will not have them. And this is the only principle that will give us the opportunity to have a state, otherwise everything will be done from all sides to prevent us from having a state,” Pashinyan added.
He went on to elaborate that that Armenia must adapt to the changing international landscape, the elements of which, he said, are playing out in Armenia.