“We believe that this is a very positive, important step towards signing the peace treaty,” Armen Grigorian, the secretary of Armenia’s Security Council, told Armenian Public Television.
“To a certain extent, this is the kind of step which shows that there is a desire to follow the logic of solving problems, and the peace treaty is the biggest opportunity to solve problems,” he said.
The Armenian government is ready to sign the treaty before the end of this month even if that time frame “seems a bit difficult” now, added Grigorian.
The agreement on the prisoner swap announced last Thursday is the result of direct Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations. Azerbaijan is to free 32 Armenian captives in exchange for Armenia’s release of two Azerbaijani soldiers and support for Baku’s bid to host the COP29 climate summit next year.
A senior Armenian pro-government lawmaker, Sargis Khandanian, cautioned on Friday that implications of the prisoner swap should not be overestimated. The two sides have only solved a “humanitarian issue” and it remains be seen whether they can make similar progress on other fronts, he said.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev twice cancelled talks with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian which the European Union planned to host in October. The peace accord was due to be their main focus.
Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov similarly withdrew from a November 20 meeting with his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan that was due to take place in Washington. Baku accused the Western powers of pro-Armenian bias and proposed direct negotiations with Yerevan.
Mirzoyan deplored later in November Baku’s “refusal to come to meetings organized by various international actors, including the U.S. and the EU.” Bayramov claimed that Yerevan itself is dragging its feet on the peace treaty.
Aliyev likewise accused the Armenian side of “artificially dragging out the process” in an interview with the Euronews TV channel recorded on November 23 but aired on December 9. He said at the same that Azerbaijan’s recent recapture of Nagorno-Karabakh, which led to the mass exodus of the region’s ethnic Armenian population, removed the main obstacle to the Armenian-Azerbaijani treaty.