The first meeting of a joint commission on the demarcation and security of the borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be soon held on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, European Council President Charles Michel said on May 22 in Brussels after talks with the leaders of the two South Caucasus countries.
Michel held bilateral meetings with both Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev before a trilateral meeting in which a peace plan for Nagorno-Karabakh was discussed.
"We discussed humanitarian issues in detail, including demining, the release of detainees, and the fate of the missing. The first meeting of the joint commission on the border will be held in the coming days at the interstate border, where all issues related to demarcation and ensuring the best security of the border will be discussed,” Michel said, without giving a precise date.
Armenia lost control over parts of the breakaway region in a 2020 war that ended with a Russian-brokered cease-fire that an estimated 2,000 Russian troops have been deployed to monitor.
Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been under ethnic Armenian control for nearly three decades, is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev (left) and European Council President Charles Michel in Brussels on May 22.
Pashinian has faced heavy criticism since he and Aliyev agreed last month in Brussels to begin drafting a peace treaty to resolve the conflict and set up a joint commission on demarcating their common border.
Azerbaijan said in a statement that Aliyev told Michel "that Azerbaijan had laid out five principles based on international law for the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and for the signing of a peace agreement."
Pashinian has publicly stated that the elements are acceptable to Yerevan in principle, fueling Armenian opposition claims that he is ready to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh.
In Yerevan, Armenian police have detained hundreds of protesters during opposition-led demonstrations seeking to force Pashinian from office.
Pashinian, who said he had agreed to the 2020 cease-fire to avoid further losses, said he would not sign any peace deal with Azerbaijan without consulting ethnic Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh.