Azerbaijan on Thursday refused to take part in normalisation talks with arch-foe Armenia that had been deliberate in america this month over what it stated was Washington’s “biased” place.
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Baku and Yerevan have been locked in a decades-long territorial battle over Azerbaijan’s Nagorno-Karabakh area, which Baku reclaimed in September after a lightning offensive in opposition to Armenian separatists.
Internationally mediated peace talks between the ex-Soviet republics have seen little progress however each international locations’ leaders have stated a complete peace settlement could possibly be signed by the tip of the 12 months.
“We don’t think about it doable to carry the proposed assembly on the extent of the Overseas Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Washington on November 20, 2023,” Baku’s overseas ministry stated in an announcement.
The transfer adopted a listening to within the US Home Overseas Affairs Committee on Wednesday, the place, the ministry stated, Assistant Secretary of State James O’Brien made “one-sided and biased remarks” about Azerbaijan.
O’Brien advised the Home Committee that “nothing might be regular with Azerbaijan after the occasions of September 19 till we see progress on the peace observe.”
“We’ve cancelled a lot of high-level visits, condemned (Baku’s) actions,” he added.
The Azerbaijani overseas ministry stated: “Such a unilateral method by america might result in the lack of america’ mediation function.”
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated on Thursday that Yerevan’s “political will to signal, within the coming months, a peace settlement with Azerbaijan stays unwavering.”
Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev have held a number of rounds of talks below EU mediation.
However final month, Aliyev refused to attend a spherical of negotiations with Pashinyan in Spain, citing France’s “biased place.”
French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had been scheduled to hitch EU chief Charles Michel as mediators at these talks.
To date, there was no seen progress in EU efforts to organise a recent spherical of negotiations.
(AFP)
