It was their third trilateral meeting in five months held in the Belgian capital. It lasted for about four hours.
“Today we agree to step up substantive work to advance on the peace treaty governing inter-state relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and tasked the Foreign Ministers to meet within one month to work on draft texts,” Michel said in a statement released after the meeting.
The Armenian government likewise said that the two ministers will meet before the end of September to “continue substantive negotiations” on the peace accord sought by Azerbaijan.
Michel already said in early April that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev pledged to “move rapidly” towards negotiating such an accord.
Baku wants the treaty to uphold Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh. Yerevan has said, for its part, that it should address the disputed territory’s status. The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers most recently met in Tbilisi in July.
Michel also said on Wednesday that he, Aliyev and Pashinian “reviewed progress” on ongoing efforts to restore Armenian-Azerbaijani transport links and demarcate the border between the two South Caucasus states.
“We agreed that the next meeting of the [Armenian-Azerbaijani] Border Commissions will take place in Brussels in November,” added the head of the European Union’s top decision-making body.
The commissions met in Moscow on Tuesday. Russian officials led by Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk also participated in the meeting.
Michel reported no further agreements on the transport links. He said in May that Aliyev and Pashinian agreed on “principles of border administration, security, land fees but also customs in the context of international transport.”
Armenia and Azerbaijan are to reopen their border to commercial and passenger traffic under the terms of a Russian-brokered ceasefire that stopped their six-week war for Nagorno-Karabakh in November 2020.
Aliyev has repeatedly claimed that the deal calls for an exterritorial land corridor for Azerbaijan’s Nakhichevan exclave passing through Armenia’s Syunik province. He has said that passage through the corridor must be exempt from Armenian border controls. Yerevan has rejected his demands.