YEREVAN: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has called on Azerbaijan to begin consultations on signing a peace treaty, a text of which the arch-foe Caucasus neighbors agreed upon last week.
Baku and Yerevan fought two wars for control of Azerbaijan’s Armenian-populated region of Karabakh, at the end of the Soviet Union and again in 2020, before Azerbaijan seized the entire area in a 24-hour offensive in September 2023.
Both countries have repeatedly said a comprehensive peace deal to end their long-standing conflict is within reach, but previous talks had failed to reach consensus on a draft agreement.
On Friday, the two countries said they had wrapped up talks on resolving the conflict, with both sides agreeing on the text of a possible treaty.
“The draft of Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement has been agreed upon and awaits signing,” Pashinyan said Thursday in an English post on Telegram.
“I propose Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to begin joint consultations on the signing of the agreed draft peace agreement.”
The deal to normalize ties would be a major breakthrough in a region where Russia, the European Union, the United States and Turkiye all jostle for influence.
Baku has made clear its expectations that Armenia remove from its constitution a reference to its 1991 declaration of independence, which asserts territorial claims over Karabakh.
Any constitutional amendment would require a national referendum that could further delay the treaty’s finalization.
Pashinyan has recognized Baku’s sovereignty over Karabakh after three decades of Armenian separatist rule, a move seen as a crucial first step toward a normalization of relations.
Armenia also last year returned to Azerbaijan four border villages it had seized decades earlier.
Nearly all ethnic Armenians — more than 100,000 people — fled Karabakh after its takeover by Baku.
Washington, Brussels and European leaders such as France’s President Emmanuel Macron have welcomed the breakthrough. They have all tried to play a mediating role at various times in the conflict.
Armenia urges Azerbaijan to sign peace deal after talks conclude
https://arab.news/94cm6
Armenia urges Azerbaijan to sign peace deal after talks conclude
- The two countries fought two wars for control of Karabakh region until Azerbaijan seized the entire area in September 2023
Archbishop of York says he was ‘intimidated’ by Israeli militias during West Bank visit
- “We were … intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the archbishop said
LONDON: The Archbishop of York has revealed that he felt “intimidated” by Israeli militias during a visit to the Holy Land this year.
“We were stopped at various checkpoints and intimidated by Israeli militias who told us that we couldn’t visit Palestinian families in the occupied West Bank,” the Rev. Stephen Cottrell told his Christmas Day congregation at York Minster.
The archbishop added: “We have become — and really, I can think of no other way of putting it — we have become fearful of each other, and especially fearful of strangers, or just people who aren’t quite like us.
“We don’t seem to be able to see ourselves in them, and therefore we spurn our common humanity.”
He recounted how YMCA charity representatives in Bethlehem, who work with persecuted Palestinian communities in the West Bank, gave him an olive wood Nativity scene carving.
The carving depicted a “large gray wall” blocking the three kings from getting to the stable to see Mary, Joseph and Jesus, he said.
He said it was sobering for him to see the wall in real life during his visit.
He continued: “But this Christmas morning here in York, as well as thinking about the walls that divide and separate the Holy Land, I’m also thinking of all the walls and barriers we erect across the whole of the world and, perhaps most alarming, the ones we build around ourselves, the ones we construct in our hearts and minds, and of how our fearful shielding of ourselves from strangers — the strangers we encounter in the homeless on our streets, refugees seeking asylum, young people starved of opportunity and growing up without hope for the future — means that we are in danger of failing to welcome Christ when he comes.”
