Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers are set to hold peace talks in Berlin this week, both ministries said Monday, in a bid to resolve a decades-long conflict between the Caucasus countries.
The two states have struggled for the control of Azerbaijan’s breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region, which Baku recaptured in September from Armenian separatists who had controlled it for decades.
“A meeting of the delegations of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan will take place on February 28-29 in Berlin,” Armenian foreign ministry spokeswoman Ani Badalyan said Monday on social media.
The meeting was planned “in line with the agreement reached at the Munich trilateral talks” during which Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev had spoken.
Their meeting had been mediated by German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov confirmed he would be meeting Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan “over the coming days.”
Tensions between the two countries have remained high since Baku re-captured Karabakh during a one-day offensive in September.
The operation triggered the exodus of most of the enclave’s entire ethnic-Armenian population -– more than 100,000 people –- flee to Armenia.
Yerevan is concerned that Azerbaijan, emboldened by its success in Karabakh, could invade Armenian territory in order to create a land bridge to its Nakhichevan enclave.
Pashinyan and Aliyev previously said a peace agreement could have been signed by the end of last year, but internationally mediated peace talks have failed to yield a breakthrough.
