YEREVAN. Aug 3 (Interfax) - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan believes that Azerbaijan is seeking to sign a peace treaty with Armenia that would allow Baku to advance territorial claims in the future.
"The borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan were determined by the 1991 Almaty Declaration, which was confirmed by the results of the meeting [with the Azerbaijani president] in Prague on October 6, 2022, where the declaration was adopted as the groundwork for the delimitation and demarcation of the borders between the countries," Pashinyan said at a government meeting on Thursday.
Declaring that Baku has no territorial claims to Armenia, the Azerbaijani president said at the same time that the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan had not been determined, Pashinyan said.
"The impression is that Azerbaijan's plan is the following: sign a peace treaty with Armenia, but leave provisions that would make it possible to dispute the border set by the Almaty Declaration, and make territorial claims to Armenia during the demarcation and delimitation process," he said.
Yerevan's proposal for the mutual withdrawal of forces from the border remains on the table, while border delimitation and demarcation does not mean the absence of a border, but on the contrary confirms the administrative border that existed at the moment the Soviet Union broke up as the state border, Pashinyan said.
"We are committed to an agreement on establishing peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the basis of recognition of each other's territorial integrity with an area of 86,600 square kilometers and with an area of 29,800 square kilometers. We expect Azerbaijan to publicly endorse this agreement," the Armenian prime minister said.