Pashinian said they discussed mutual recognition of Armenia’s and Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity, delimitation of the border and transport links between the two states as well as the deepening humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh caused by Azerbaijan’s blockade of the Lachin corridor. He made no explicit mention of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty, the main focus of peace talks held by Baku and Yerevan in recent months.
“As you can see, I cannot present very concrete results from the Brussels meeting,” Pashinian told his ministers during a weekly cabinet meeting. “Nevertheless, the negotiation process should continue as intensively as possible and active efforts should be made to find mutually acceptable solutions.”
Speaking after the trilateral meeting, Michel gave no indications that Aliyev and Pashinian narrowed their differences on the peace treaty. He said he urged them to “take further courageous steps to ensure decisive and irreversible progress on the normalization track.”
Pashinian said the meeting “did not yield any concrete results in terms of opening the Lachin corridor and overcoming the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh.” He again charged that “ethnic cleansing” is the ultimate aim of the Azerbaijani blockade.
“At the moment, our task is to draw greater international attention to the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh through diplomatic methods and by presenting the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh in the international press and social media as widely and objectively as possible,” he said.
Artur Khachatrian, an Armenian opposition lawmaker, dismissed the remarks. He said Yerevan should portray the blockade as further proof that the Karabakh Armenians cannot live safely under Azerbaijani rule.
“They [the Armenian government] don’t talk about that because they are scared,” he told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Echoing statements by other opposition leaders, Khachatrian claimed that the blockade is the result of Pashinian’s decision to stop championing Karabakh’s right to self-determination and to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over the Armenian populated region.