Armenia presented a draft peace agreement to Azerbaijan

Armenia has presented its longtime enemies from Azerbaijan with a draft of a full peace agreement, which would end the decades-long dispute between the two countries over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan (Pashinyan) said on Thursday, February 16.

The two countries went through two wars for control of the Azerbaijani enclave inhabited by Armenians. Tens of thousands of people died in them.

Internationally mediated peace negotiations between the two former Soviet republics yielded very poor results.

Pashinyan said that on Wednesday, Yerevan completed "another stage in the peace agreement project and establishment of diplomatic ties" with official Baku.

"The draft of the comprehensive agreement has been handed over to Azerbaijan," he announced at a meeting of his cabinet in Yerevan.

"The document must be acceptable to Azerbaijan. Its signing must bring lasting peace," the Prime Minister pointed out.

The announcement comes after Yerevan accused Baku of a "policy of ethnic cleansing" and driving ethnic Armenians out of the breakaway region.

Since mid-December, a group of self-styled Azerbaijani environmental activists have blocked the only road connecting Karabakh and Armenia, they say, to protest illegal mines.

Yerevan claims the blockade has led to a "humanitarian crisis" in the mountainous region, which is facing shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

When the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991, Armenian separatists in Karabakh broke away from Azerbaijan. In the conflict that followed, around 30 people died.

New violence flared up in 2020, resulting in more than 6.500 deaths, and ended with a Russian-brokered truce in which Armenia surrendered territories it had controlled for decades.