Baku insisted, meanwhile, that the two sides made no progress on the thorny issue during recent peace talks.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev discussed it at their most recent meeting held in Moldova’s capital Chisinau on Thursday on the sidelines of a European summit. They were joined by European Union chief Charles Michel, French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.
Pashinian described the talks as “useful.” In particular, he said, Baku now seems open to accepting an Armenian proposal to use 1975 Soviet maps as a basis for delimiting the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
The secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, Armen Grigorian, likewise said on Sunday that “progress” was made at Chisinau regarding the use of those maps. The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry denied that on Monday, however, accusing Grigorian of misrepresenting the Chisinau summit.
“The Armenian side is well aware that at this and other meetings no agreement was reached on using any maps as the basis for the border delimitation,” the ministry said in a statement.
The statement noted that Azerbaijan has demarcated its borders with other neighboring states “on the basis of analyses and examination of legally binding documents, rather than any specially chosen map.”
Speaking in the Armenian parliament later in the day, Mirzoyan acknowledged that Yerevan and Baku still disagree on the border delimitation mechanism. But he too claimed that during the Chisinau meeting Aliyev “did not seem to object” to using the 1975 maps.
Aliyev said ahead of that meeting that the demarcation process must be carried out on Baku’s terms and warned of fresh military action against Armenia.