By Mark Dovich
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev are set to meet in Brussels Sunday with European Council President Charles Michel, the Financial Times reported Monday, citing three unnamed officials familiar with the matter.
Spokespeople for Pashinyan, Aliyev, and Michel did not respond to requests for comment or declined to comment to the newspaper about the report.
One of the sources said the upcoming talks represent an “important sign of progress,” adding that facilitation efforts by the European Union and United States are “mutually reinforcing” and “complementary two-track processes.”
Last week, the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan held marathon negotiations in Washington that were welcomed by Secretary of State Antony Blinken as “intensive and constructive” meetings that achieved “significant progress” on a peace deal.
“An agreement is within reach,” Blinken said.
In contrast, Pashinyan has sought to temper expectations, stressing that a wide gulf remains between Armenia and Azerbaijan’s positions on key issues, particularly around Nagorno-Karabakh, the issue at the heart of the two countries’ decades-long conflict.
“While the difference between the sides was 1 kilometer before, now it is 990 meters. It is progress, but there is still a huge difference,” Pashinyan told Radio Azatutyun, RFE/RL’s Armenian service.
Read more: ‘Huge differences’ remain between Yerevan, Baku despite ‘progress’ in US talks
Sources told the Financial Times the Brussels meeting will likely focus on Azerbaijan’s move last month to install a checkpoint along the sole overland route connecting Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Months before that, self-styled Azerbaijani environmental activists, many of whom were later revealed to be connected with the government, set up a roadblock on a different section of the Lachin corridor, prompting severe shortages of energy, food, medicine, and other essentials in Nagorno-Karabakh.
Between the roadblock and the checkpoint, Azerbaijan’s blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh’s more than 100,000 Armenians is now approaching its 150th day.
In February, a United Nations court ordered Azerbaijan to “take all measures at its disposal to ensure unimpeded movement” between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh, but the court has no enforcement powers.
Decades of internationally mediated talks spearheaded by the Minsk Group, a body co-chaired by France, Russia, and the United States, have failed to reach a diplomatic solution to the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
After the end of the 2020 war in and around Nagorno-Karabakh, the European Union, Russia, and the United States emerged as the main facilitators, while the Minsk Group’s work has been largely frozen since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year.
Pashinyan notably told Radio Azatutyun last week that claims of competing “Western” and “Russian” peace treaty drafts are unfounded.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters last week that “specific plans” are being made for Pashinyan to meet with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow this week, but declined to name a date. Pashinyan’s office has not commented on those remarks.
In addition, the Financial Times said Pashinyan and Aliyev are set to hold another meeting in the In addition, the Financial Times said Pashinyan and Aliyev are set to hold another meeting in Moldova on June 1 with Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron.
The four officials’ most recent meeting together took place last October in Prague, where Armenia and Azerbaijan reached an agreement to recognize Soviet-era administrative boundaries as their borders.
Pashinyan and Aliyev last met in February for talks in Munich with Blinken.