Armenia, Azerbaijan found common ground on basic principles of peace settlement, claims Premier Pashinyan

MOSCOW

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan claimed on Saturday that his country has managed to reach an agreement with Azerbaijan over the basic principles of a peace settlement.

However, the two countries continue to speak "different diplomatic languages" because of that they do not understand each other, Pashinyan said at the opening of the parliamentary session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) in Armenia's capital of Yerevan.

The Armenian leader also said the two countries' protracted conflict over the Karabakh region is taking its toll.

Pashinyan's remarks came the day after a UN International Criminal Court hearing on Armenia's lawsuit against Azerbaijan.

Armenia accuses Baku of violating the International Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination due to the recent escalation of tensions in Karabakh, though UN agencies earlier categorically stated that they had not recorded any cases of Azerbaijan's discriminatory attitude toward Armenians.

Earlier in September, Armenia ratified the Rome Statute, establishing the International Criminal Court, with the goal of suing Azerbaijan over its actions in Karabakh.

Relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia have been tense since 1991, when the Armenian military occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Most of the territory was liberated by Azerbaijan during a war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement and also opened the door to normalization.

This September, the Azerbaijani army initiated an anti-terrorism operation in Karabakh to establish a constitutional order, after which illegal separatist forces in the region surrendered.