According to the Azeri envoy in France, a peace agreement with Armenia is possible during the European summit

PARIS (Reuters) – Azerbaijan and Armenia could sign a peace deal to end their decades-long conflict over the region of Nagorno-Karabakh at a European summit scheduled for next week, media reported from Baku on Friday. Sent to France.

It will be signed during the meeting of the leaders of the two countries on the sidelines of the European Political Community (EPC) summit to be held next Thursday in Moldova.

“On June 1 in Chisinau, we are finally waiting for the signing of a peace treaty,” Azeri diplomat Leyla Abdullayeva told reporters of the Diplomatic Press Association.

“It is a historic moment. It is a moment that absolutely must not be missed.”

The summit in Chisinau will bring together EU member states and 17 other European countries. Around 47 heads of state, government and EU institutions are expected to participate.

Diplomatic sources said that on the sidelines of the summit, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azeri President Ilham Aliev are expected to hold talks with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz.

The two leaders have already met on Thursday in Russia, which has traditionally been the main intermediary between the two countries located on the southwestern edge of the former Soviet Union.

They agreed to hold new trilateral talks next week between the officials of the three countries.

Nagorno-Karabakh, an enclave internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijani territory but populated mainly by Armenians, has been a source of conflict for years before the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Since the end of the last conflict in 2020 – at the end of which Azerbaijan annexed large swathes of territory in Nagorno-Karabakh – tensions have flared up regularly around the Lachin Corridor, which links the enclave to Armenia. There is only one road.

There has been recent progress towards a solution based on mutual recognition of the territorial integrity of each side.

(Reporting by John Irish; French editing by Gail Sheehan, Blandine Heinault)