“Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Vahan Kostanyan took part in the Armenia and the EU conference which was held in the sidelines of the GLOBSEC conference. In his speech, Kostanyan touched upon Armenia’s foreign policy and stressed the importance of its diversification to defend the republic’s sovereignty, international borders and democracy. Touching upon the process of the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, Vahan Kostanyan noted that Armenia had handed over to the Azerbaijani side the 10th package of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The deputy foreign minister reiterated Yerevan’s readiness to establish peace in the South Caucasus and in the region,” it said.
The senior Armenian diplomat also hailed the active political dialogue and the solid basis for cooperation between Armenia and the European Union countries, the ministry added.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have engaged in a series of bloody confrontations since both republics declared independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. The two countries fought a war over the self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh in 2020, and Azerbaijani forces clashed with the province’s separatist forces in 2023. The conflict ended with the dissolution of Nagorno-Karabakh’s government and the return of the province to Azerbaijani control.
Although situated inside Azerbaijani territory, Nagorno-Karabakh was governed by ethnic Armenian separatists until last year. Before the fall of the USSR, the province had ruled itself as an autonomous region within the Azerbaijan SSR.
