Secretary of Armenia’s Security Council Armen Grigorian met with Toivo Klaar, the EU’s special representative for the South Caucasus, during his visit to Brussels over the weekend to discuss “issues related to a trilateral meeting in Brussels.” No other details from the meeting were given in the official press release.
In the EU’s capital Grigorian attended a forum organized by Armenian civil society organizations advocating European integration. There he reaffirmed that Armenia is ready to continue negotiations in the format proposed by Brussels.
“Armenia is ready for a trilateral meeting in Brussels. We have said it before, and we are saying it now that Armenia is ready, and whenever it is possible, that is, the three parties must agree, at least Armenia definitely agrees to this. Whenever there is an agreement, that meeting will take place,” the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council stressed.
A senior EU official told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Friday that the European Union may succeed in organizing next month a potentially decisive meeting of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev.
Aliyev and Pashinian were scheduled to meet on the fringes of the EU’s October 5 summit in Granada, Spain. Pashinian hoped that they will sign there a document laying out the main parameters of an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty.
However, Aliyev withdrew from the talks at the last minute. He also appears to have cancelled another meeting which EU Council President Charles Michel planned in Brussels later in October.
The EU official, who did not want to be identified, said that Michel and other EU representatives are now holding separate discussions with Yerevan and Baku in an effort to reschedule the trilateral meeting for December. Although no agreement has been reached so far, the summit may take place next month, said the official.
Pashinian said, meanwhile, that he has not yet received “an invitation to the next meeting from Charles Michel.” Speaking during the annual Paris Peace Forum in the French capital, he said the peace accord can be signed “in the coming months” if Azerbaijan commits to mutual recognition of each other’s Soviet-era borders, a corresponding mechanism for delimitating the Armenian-Azerbaijani frontier and agrees that future transport arrangements in the region must respect the principles of “sovereignty, jurisdiction, reciprocity and equality of all countries.”
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