Germany is hosting the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan trying to engineer a peace treaty between the two Caucasian countries following years of war and conflict over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region.
German foreign minister Annalena Baerbock welcomed Armenian foreign minister Ararat Mirzoyan and the Azeri counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov for peace talks in a secluded government villa. The meeting follows one between German Chancellor OIaf Scholz, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference.
Ahead of the private talks, Baerbock underlined the importance of the meeting, saying that “what we’re seeing now are courageous steps by both countries to put the past behind and to work toward a durable peace for their people.” She believes that the meeting is an “opportunity “o achieves an enduring peace after years of painful conflict.”
The Nagorno-Karabakh region has been contested between the two countries since the dissolution of the Soviet Union. After nearly three decades of control by ethnic Armenians and of a low-intensity conflict, Azerbaijan reclaimed most of the region during a six-week war in 2020. From December 2022 Azerbaijan started a blockade of the region and finally in September 2023 the country launched another attack that led the remaining Armenians, around 100,000 people, to flee the region.
Despite a Russia-brokered truce in 2020, the two countries are yet to sign a final peace treaty, amid mutual distrust and tension.
