Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan did not explicitly rule out the possibility of such a summit. But he denied that Yerevan is planning to make far-reaching concessions to Baku.
“First of all, I want to say that no meeting in that format is planned for the moment,” Mirzoyan told the Armenian parliament.
“Proposals for different meetings in different formats are being discussed. Presumably an agreed text might be released as a result of possible meetings,” he said during the government’s question-and-answer session in the National Assembly.
Some Russian and Armenian media outlets reported late last week that that Russian President Vladimir Putin is set to host fresh talks between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Citing unnamed Armenian diplomatic sources, Aliqmedia.am claimed that Aliyev and Pashinian will sign two agreements envisaging the demarcation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the opening of transport links between the two South Caucasus states. The publication said one of those documents will also commit Baku and Yerevan to recognizing each other’s territorial integrity.
“The signing of those two documents with such content is definitely not planned,” said Mirzoyan. He insisted that Pashinian’s administration will not sign any deals contradicting its public statements on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Pashinian was present at the session but did not comment on the matter. He answered instead other conflict-related questions asked by opposition lawmakers.
Some of those deputies again expressed concern over the media reports. Armen Rustamian of the opposition Hayastan alliance said he fears that Pashinian will commit to fateful concessions to Aliyev.
Earlier on Wednesday Hayastan and the opposition Pativ Unem bloc tried unsuccessfully to have the parliament adopt a statement saying that any agreement referring to Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory is unacceptable to Armenia and that Soviet-era maps alone can serve as a basis for Armenian-Azerbaijani border demarcation.
The parliament majority representing Pashinian’s Civil Contract party blocked the passage of the statement. The head of Civil Contract’s parliamentary group, Hayk Konjorian, said the majority objected to the document because of its “internal political” wording. Opposition lawmakers dismissed the explanation.