In an interview with RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Simonian insisted that Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks have not reached an impasse despite Baku’s preconditions and rejections of repeated Armenian proposals to sign an initial peace agreement.
“No, we cannot and must not say such a thing,” he said during a visit to Prague. “And we must not allow that process to enter a deadlock. That’s what the people, the states that are hostile to Armenia and perhaps Azerbaijan want. And I think that this realization exists in Azerbaijan as well.”
Simonian, who is a key political ally of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, did not name those states. His claim was bound to be construed by some Armenian commentators as a reference to Russia. Yerevan has repeatedly resisted this year Moscow’s attempts to resume its mediation of Armenian-Azerbaijani peace talks.
For its part, Baku has continued to dismiss Yerevan’s proposal to sign a bilateral agreement that would leave out their remaining sticking points. It has also insisted that any peace deal is conditional on a change of Armenia’s constitution which it says contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan.
The foreign ministers of the two South Caucasus states signaled no further progress towards the conflict’s resolution after holding fresh talks in Istanbul on Friday. Simonian dismissed speculation that Pashinian’s government could make more concessions to Baku for the sake of a preliminary settlement. He specifically ruled out the possibility of giving Azerbaijan an extraterritorial land corridor to its Nakhichevan exclave.
“Armenia has reached and now stands at the edge of its sovereignty and has no more room for concessions,” he said amid continuing Armenian opposition claims that Pashinian’s appeasement policy towards Azerbaijan has been a gross failure.
Like other Pashinian allies, Simonian suggested that Baku might be gearing up for a fresh military attack on Armenia.