Armenia hopes to sign peace articles with Azerbaijan within a month, president says

By Libby George and Felix Light

HAMBURG, Germany (Reuters) - Armenia hopes to sign provisions of a peace deal with Azerbaijan in the next four weeks, the country's president told Reuters, a step that could ease tensions in the conflict-ridden South Caucasus, even as Baku has signalled that the process is stalled.

The two countries have been engaged in peace talks for the past year, since Azerbaijan in September 2023 retook the former breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh after 30 years of de facto independence, prompting almost its entire ethnic Armenian population of around 100,000 to flee to Armenia.

The talks have been tense, with both nations in recent weeks accusing the other of not being interested in signing a treaty to end their more than three decades of conflict that started before the two countries gained their independence from Moscow.

In a speech on Friday, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev accused Armenia of being insincere about wanting to complete a deal and of rearming for fresh fighting, warning it to "stop these dangerous games".

But Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan said Yerevan was hopeful Azerbaijan would sign 16 of the articles before the COP29 climate change conference that Baku is hosting on Nov 11-22.

"Had it been only us, we would sign it right now, today," he said, speaking on the sidelines of the Hamburg Sustainability Conference, adding "but we do hope we will reach that point sooner or later."

The agreed articles contain internationally accepted core provisions for establishing diplomatic relations. They also stipulate the mechanism that enables both sides to continue negotiations, among other provisions, according to a speech made by the Armenian prime minister last month. 

Khachaturyan's powers are mostly ceremonial, but he is an ally of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. He added that there are several other articles still under negotiation with Azerbaijani officials. 

Azerbaijan has said Armenia must change its constitution to remove indirect references to Karabakh's independence before signing a peace treaty.

Earlier this year, Armenia withdrew from several Azerbaijani villages it controlled since the early 1990s as part of the peace process.

Some of the hundreds of thousands of ethnic Azeris who fled homes in and around Karabakh during the 1990s have been able to return since Azerbaijan's military victory.

Khachaturyan also said talks with Turkey, Azerbaijan's close ally, are going well, and there is a proposal under consideration to open the border between the two countries for third-country citizens and those with diplomatic passports.  

"This will be a signal that real diplomatic relations have become a reality," he said.     

Ankara severed ties with Yerevan in 1993 in support of Azerbaijan during its war with Armenia over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, but diplomatic conversations between the two have intensified in recent years.

(Reporting By Libby George; additional reporting by Felix Light in Tbilisi, editing by William Maclean)