In an interview with TASS on September 16, Azerbaijani Presidential Aide Hikmet Hajiyev said that Azerbaijan still expects to conclude a peace treaty with Armenia by the end of the year. 

"We still hope for the signing of a peace treaty by the end of this year and call on the Armenian political leadership to take the main step - to officially, with its signature under the peace treaty, fix the recognition of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, including the Karabakh economic region of our republic, and pledge to refrain from interfering in the internal affairs of our country in the future," Hajiyev said. "Including through attempts to bring our internal issues, such as our interaction with our citizens of Armenian ethnic origin in Karabakh, to international platforms under the pretext of ensuring the rights and security of this population group. These are our citizens, and their rights and security will be ensured by the Constitution of Azerbaijan," Hajiyev clarified.

According to the Aide to the head of the republic, Armenia needs to abandon the policy of financing separatism in Azerbaijan. "As for the activities of international mediators, we highly appreciate their contribution to the normalization of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations," he added. Hajiyev noted that the role of Russia in this process, "whose active mediation ensured the signing of the trilateral agreement in November 2020, which put an end to large-scale hostilities, is extremely important."

"The European Union and the United States also contribute their share to the negotiation process. In general, each of the negotiation tracks is unique in its own way and helps the dialog between Baku and Yerevan on the most problematic issues," Hajiyev pointed out.

Response from Armenia

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan stated that no document will be signed between Armenia and Azerbaijan on October 5 in Granada. Pashinyan emphasized that if a document were planned to be signed, it would imply that Armenia deems it to align with the country’s balanced interests, and in such a case, Armenia would sign it.

“We have said that the peace agenda is our priority, and we want to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan as soon as possible, for example, by the end of the year or the beginning of next year. We are doing everything possible for this,” the PM highlighted.

Pashinyan expresses hope that intensive negotiations with Azerbaijan will persist and a resolution to the problem will be reached.

“It is clear that the extreme humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh is having a negative impact on the peace process. I believe that we have lost and continue to lose a lot of time due to the illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor. The time and energy that we spend and continue to spend to no avail on resolving this issue could be spent on discussing a peace treaty if this situation did not exist,” he said.

Armenian PM also indicated his belief that the situation may evolve, and there’s a possibility of a peace agreement being signed by the end of the year.

“I must always consider this possible because I have made a political commitment to sign such an agreement. The longer this agreement is delayed, the worse it is in terms of the political commitments made. I think this is possible because we hope that this situation will change. We are working on changing this situation, opening the Lachin Corridor, overcoming the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the possibility of the Stepanakert-Baku dialogue. My job is to do everything to make it possible and proceed on the assumption that it is possible and that we must do it,” he added.