On October 14, a meeting of the Council of Heads of State of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) was held in Astana. President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan participated in the meeting, the Press Offices of the Azerbaijani President and Armenian Prime Minister reported.

Aliyev stated: "On 6 October, on the sidelines of a new platform of the European political community in Prague, a four-sided meeting was held with the participation of the President of France, the President of the European Council, the Prime Minister of Armenia, and the President of Azerbaijan. At that meeting, as a result of many hours of negotiations, the decision was reached to send a civilian mission of the European Union in the amount of 40 people to the territory of Armenia near the Armenia-Azerbaijan border. Subsequently, we learned that their number would be 50. They will stay there for at least two months. The purpose of this mission, as we saw it and agreed to it, is to help the parties draw the border and agree on issues related to delimitation. There was an attempt to send this mission to the Azerbaijani side, which we resolutely rejected. Therefore, the mission will be located on the territory of Armenia, in the zone of CSTO's responsibility. The first group of European representatives arrived in Armenia yesterday to determine the location of this mission."

"Unfortunately, even though Azerbaijan agreed to the four-sided meeting, including the participation of the President of France, although France has nothing to do with the relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia. As a co-chair of the Minsk Group, France had a mediation mandate. However, since the Karabakh conflict has been resolved and there is no need for the services of the Minsk Group, especially since this was rather a disservice, as I said. The Minsk Group had done nothing at all; not a single centimeter of our territory was vacated – Azerbaijan showed goodwill nonetheless. It allowed the French President to participate in this meeting. Despite the goodwill shown by Azerbaijan, just a week after the meeting in Prague, the President of France made insulting, unacceptable, false, and provocative statements. They are available in the media, and everyone can see them. In these statements, he accused Azerbaijan of engaging in a horrific war, thereby manipulating the facts and trying to mislead the French and the world public. Azerbaijan waged war on its internationally recognized territory. Karabakh is recognized by the whole world as a part of Azerbaijan," he emphasized.

"Biased statements were also made against the Russian Federation, namely, that 'Russia played the Azerbaijani game.' It is up to the French public to decide how politically correct it is for the President of a great country to use the street lexicon. For our part, we categorically condemn and reject such statements and, given such an attitude of the French government, see no further possibility for France to play a role in the normalization of Azerbaijan-Armenia relations," the Azerbaijani President said.

"Another point I would like to draw your attention to is that a trilateral Declaration was adopted with the mediation of the Russian Federation in November 2020. Azerbaijan is fulfilling all the Declaration's provisions, including ensuring unhindered access from Armenia to Karabakh. Armenia is not fulfilling its part of the Declaration. Namely, it does not provide unhindered access from the main part of Azerbaijan to the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic, which is its legal obligation, and has not yet withdrawn the Armenian armed forces from Azerbaijani territory. We are still showing patience, but it is not unlimited. If these two important provisions of the trilateral Declaration of November 2020 are not implemented, we will be left with no other option but to act accordingly," he concluded.

The Armenian Prime Minister stated that Azerbaijan has repeatedly violated its obligations. "Armenia handed over to Azerbaijan several maps of the burial places of the victims of the first war in Nagorno-Karabakh," Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the CIS summit in Astana. The Prime Minister listed several arguments confirming that Baku is not ready to move towards a peaceful settlement. "But then Baku stated that the accuracy of these maps is only 25%. Armenia expressed its readiness to verify this statement with the involvement of international experts. On the other hand, even if this statement is true, then Armenia gave all its maps to Azerbaijan and did not have any better or accurate maps that it has kept for itself," he added.

"Transport infrastructure facilities should operate under the full sovereignty of the countries through which they pass," the head of the Armenian government stressed. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused Azerbaijan of distorting the statement of November 9, 2020. "I want to emphasize that the ninth paragraph of this statement does not mention the word corridor anywhere in any way. In the statement on November 9, 2020, the word corridor is used only about the Lachin corridor in the context of ensuring the security of Nagorno-Karabakh and has nothing to do with the topic of unblocking transport links. We consider any parallels of these agreements to be manipulation," Pashinyan said. "I officially declare that we are ready for the speedy opening of roads on this basis. Moreover, the draft decision of the Armenian government on opening three checkpoints to ensure transport links between the western regions of the Republic of Azerbaijan and the Nakhchivan Autonomous Republic has long been in official circulation. Still, the President of Azerbaijan himself speaks against making such a decision. And this is due to Azerbaijan's desire to route the unblocking of communications and isolate the movement of people, goods, and transport as much as possible. This indicates that they are not interested in the logic of establishing lasting peace in the region," the Prime Minister of Armenia said. "I also want to respond to some statements by the President of Azerbaijan regarding mining. This is completely and entirely taking place on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia. This is our right to take some security measures to protect the territorial integrity of our country," Pashinyan stated.

According to the Prime Minister, Baku has not abandoned the idea of ​​occupying new territories of Armenia, and this must be prevented. "The danger of new aggression from Azerbaijan against Armenia remains very high," stated Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

"The CIS countries must answer several questions before receiving observer status in the CSTO. Armenia considers it premature to grant the CIS observer status in the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO)," the Armenian Prime Minister stated. "Before making a decision, I consider it important to decide on the following issues. Does the CSTO recognize the state borders of the CIS countries, enshrined in the fundamental documents of the CIS in 1991? This is an important question since we are talking about the area of ​​responsibility of the CSTO and, let me say, about the functionality of the Organization itself. If we rely on the interpretation that there are no borders between the CIS countries since the process of delimitation of these borders has not been carried out, this means that the area of ​​responsibility of the CSTO is not defined, that is, it does not exist. And this erodes the functionality of the CSTO," Pashinyan said.

"According to these documents, the former administrative borders of the Soviet republics became state borders between already independent countries. The delimitation of borders with Azerbaijan will be based on the fundamental documents of the CIS," Pashinyan concluded.