Armenia and Azerbaijan exchanged accusations again, two days before new talks aimed at concluding a peace agreement to resolve a decades-old conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
And after peace talks between the two countries appeared to be making progress in the past few weeks, with Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recognizing Azerbaijan's control of Karabakh, Armenia accused Azerbaijan on Monday of threatening to resort to force after its president, Ilham Aliyev, demanded the dissolution of the "separatist" local government in Karabakh
A statement issued by the Armenian Foreign Ministry – reported by the Armenian Press news agency – stated that Aliyev is making "genocide threats" and "paving the way for another act of aggression against the residents of Nagorno-Karabakh."
Speaking on Sunday in the town of Lachin, Aliyev said that after Azerbaijan's successes in the 2020 war, it is time for Armenians to abandon their "illusions" of Karabakh independence.
"This means abiding by the laws of Azerbaijan and becoming ordinary and loyal citizens, throwing the symbols of the false state into the trash, and dissolving the so-called parliament," he added in a speech broadcast on state television in Azerbaijan.
Aliyev and Pashinyan met last week in Moscow, where Russian President Vladimir Putin said he believed the two sides were making progress toward a long-term peace deal.
Since the 6-week conflict in 2020 that ended in a truce mediated by Russia, Pashinyan and Aliyev have held several meetings organized by Moscow, the European Union and the United States.
Both Azerbaijan and Armenia, the former Soviet republics, fought wars over the territory, which is recognized as part of Azerbaijan but is predominantly Armenian. In 2020, Azerbaijan regained parts of the region that it had lost in a struggle with the collapse of Soviet rule in the early 1990s.
The Karabakh region has been the focus of the two countries' conflict for a long time, along with the demarcation of their borders, the return of prisoners, and the establishment of commercial "corridors" that pass through their respective lands.