BERLIN, 28 Feb: Germany sought to move forward talks on a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan on Wednesday, welcoming the two countries\u2019 foreign ministers to Berlin.
\nGerman Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock hosted her counterparts, Armenia\u2019s Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijan\u2019s Jeyhun Bayramov, at a secluded government villa for what was billed as two days of talks.
\nThe latest talks followed a meeting on Feb. 17 between German Chancellor OIaf Scholz, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Scholz underlined Germany\u2019s willingness to help conclude peace talks, along with that of European Council President Charles Michel.
\n\u201cWe believe that Armenia and Azerbaijan now have an opportunity to achieve an enduring peace after years of painful conflict,\u201d Baerbock, who visited both countries in November, said ahead of a three-way meeting. \u201cWhat we\u2019re seeing now are courageous steps by both countries to put the past behind and to work toward a durable peace for their people.\u201d
\nArmenia and Azerbaijan have a long history of land disputes. The most recent border skirmish left at least four Armenian soldiers dead earlier in mid-February.
\nAzerbaijan waged a lightning military campaign last year to reclaim the Karabakh region, which Armenian separatists had ruled for three decades.
\nThe region, which was known internationally as Nagorno-Karabakh, and large swaths of surrounding territory came under full control of ethnic Armenian forces backed by Armenia at the end of a separatist war in 1994.
\nAzerbaijan regained parts of Karabakh and most of the surrounding territory in a six-week war in 2020 that ended with a Russian-brokered truce. In December 2022, Azerbaijan started blockading the road linking the region with Armenia, causing food and fuel shortages.
\nIt then launched a blitz in September 2023 that routed the separatist forces in one day and forced them to lay down arms. More than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled the region, leaving it nearly deserted.
\nWith political momen-tum from the successful military operation, Aliyev won another term in a snap election on Feb. 7.
\nArmenia and Azerbaijan have pledged to work toward signing a peace treaty, but no visible progress has been made, and tensions have continued to soar amid mutual distrust.
\n\u201cDirect dialog like today and tomorrow is the best way to make further prog-ress,\u201d Baerbock said. (AP)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
BERLIN, 28 Feb: Germany sought to move forward talks on a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan on Wednesday, welcoming the two countries\u2019 foreign ministers to Berlin. German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock hosted her counterparts, Armenia\u2019s Ararat Mirzoyan and Azerbaijan\u2019s Jeyhun Bayramov, at a secluded government villa for what was billed as two days of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[15],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-235826","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-world"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235826","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=235826"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/235826\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=235826"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=235826"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/arunachaltimes.in\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=235826"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}