Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanian said the Armenian government has still not decided whether to attend the annual UN summit that will last for almost two weeks.
“If there is no decision yet, both going and not going [to COP29] are theoretically possible,” he told journalists. “That depends on current processes … That depends on the dynamics of the [Armenia-Azerbaijan] settlement process.”
Kostanian implicitly linked Yerevan’s decision to further progress towards an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace deal and the release of Armenian prisoners still held in Azerbaijan.
Armenian press reports said late last month that Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan is ready to attend COP29 if Baku agrees to free at least some of the remaining 23 prisoners. Mirzoyan was scheduled to fly to Sweden on Monday for a two-day working visit.
According to a senior Armenian lawmaker, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian proposed to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev last month that their foreign ministers hold two-day intensive talks to iron out their remaining differences and sign a bilateral peace treaty before COP29. Kostanian admitted on Monday that the two sides still disagree on some provisions of the would-be treaty after exchanging fresh peace proposals last week.
“There are still issues on which the two sides differ, but we see an opportunity to approximate those views,” he said, answering a question from RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.
Armenia had dropped its objections to Baku’s bid to host the global summit last December as part of a deal that led to the release of 32 other Armenian soldiers and civilians held in Azerbaijani captivity. In recent months, Mirzoyan and other Armenian officials have expressed concern that Azerbaijan could invade Armenia after COP29.
Aliyev again threatened such military action on Friday, saying that Armenia must stop acquiring weapons and rebuilding its armed forces. In a weekend phone call with German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, Aliyev also repeated his main precondition for a peace treaty with Yerevan: a change of Armenia’s constitution which he says contains territorial claims to Azerbaijan.