Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev says his country will refuse to recognize Armenia's territorial integrity unless Yerevan signs a bilateral peace deal in line with proposals made by Baku.
Speaking on April 22 at the Fifth Congress of the World's Azeris in the city of Susa, located in the Nagorno-Karabakh region, where the two countries recently fought a war, Aliyev said the Baku-proposed peace deal was Armenia's "only and last chance."
"If they reject [the deal], we will also refuse to recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia," Aliyev said.
Susa is known as Shushi in Armenian.
Aliyev also called on Yerevan to avoid dragging out talks on a peace deal, stressing that Armenia had previously agreed with all five elements of the proposed agreement.
Earlier this month, Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian agreed to start drafting a bilateral peace treaty to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and set up a joint commission on demarcating their common border during talks in Brussels hosted by European Council President Charles Michel.
Baku wants the peace deal to be based on five elements, including a mutual recognition of each other's territorial integrity.
Pashinian has publicly stated that they are acceptable to Yerevan in principle, fueling Armenian opposition claims that he is ready to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh.
In a 2020 six-week war, Baku regained control of parts of the breakaway region, including Susa, as well as seven adjacent districts that had been under the control of ethnic Armenian forces since the end of a separatist war in 1994.
Some 2,000 Russian troops have been deployed to monitor the current cease-fire.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been under ethnic Armenian control for nearly three decades, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.