Azerbaijan and Armenia could be closing in on a peace agreement, but the sides require a result-oriented exercise, Azerbaijan's Presidential Representative for Special Assignments Elchin Amirbayov said.
“What is important to understand is that at this crucial stage in negotiations, where apparently we’re not that much far away from the final agreement, [is that] we do need a result-oriented exercise,” Elchin Amirbayov said.
He recalled that Azerbaijan is awaiting Yerevan’s response to Baku’s comments on the latest draft of the peace proposal.
The Presidential Representative stressed that Armenia should fully realise the benefits of peace with Azerbaijan and finally give up all harmful illusions and manipulations aimed at disrupting the peace process and returning to military confrontation with Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan also wants some kind of dispute mechanism for the agreement.
“Our preference would be to have peace agreements. An article which would speak about some kind of bilateral commission, which needs to be set up in order to address all those misunderstandings or differences in interpretations between us,” he said.
Amirbayov also noted that the linkage between Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan Autonomus Republic is crucial for Baku in terms of national security but also in terms of ensuring an alternative inmternational route from China to Europe.
According to him, if it is possible the existence of the alternative route might make Armenia to realise how much they may lose by continuing to resist the link going through its land.
“Of course, we cannot force Armenia to implement what they had committed to, and it is nonsensical to suggest we would invade to impose this corridor through force or such like. So we have reached out to Iran as a plan B to build a link by road and rail through Iran," Amirbayov said.
