Armenian and Azerbaijani Civil Society Representatives Hold First Joint Meeting in Yerevan

A roundtable between representatives of Armenian and Azerbaijani civil society was held on October 21–22 in Yerevan at the Research Center for Policy Studies, Orda.kz reports, citing ArmenPress.

This was the first dialogue of its kind held not in a third country, but on the territory of one of the parties to the conflict. Participants discussed the normalization of relations between Baku and Yerevan, humanitarian cooperation, and prospects for reopening regional communications in the South Caucasus.

The meeting comes after the August 8 Washington declaration, signed by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which ended active hostilities but stopped short of a full peace treaty.

Incidentally, on October 21, Azerbaijan lifted cargo transit restrictions to Armenia that had been in place since the Karabakh conflict in the 1990s.

The Yerevan event was organized jointly by experts from both countries to “promote a peace agenda in the spirit of the Joint Declaration adopted on August 8 in Washington,” according to a statement from the center.

Armenian participants included Yerevan Press Club honorary chair Boris Navasardyan, Democracy Development Foundation director Naira Sultanyan, and security researcher Areg Kochinyan.

From Azerbaijan, the delegation included political analyst Farhad Mammadov, Baku Analytical Center director Rusif Huseynov, and 1news.az editor-in-chief Kyamala Mammadova, among others. The group also met with Armen Grigoryan, Secretary of Armenia’s Security Council.

Political analyst Robert Gevondyan noted that holding such talks inside Armenia was unprecedented and could open the way for further progress on border delimitation and economic cooperation, according to The Caucasian Knot. 

He also pointed out that talks may have touched on changing Armenia's constitution, a long-standing condition set by Baku.