Conflict and Peace

After four hours of intensive discussions in Brussels on Wednesday evening  (6 April), European Council president Charles Michel announced that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan had agreed to instruct their foreign ministers to start work on the preparation of a peace treaty, which would address all necessary issues. "The process has started. It started tonight", president Michel told journalists. Michel earlier met separately with Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan and with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev before the three convened for their meeting. Michel described the meeting as "excellent and very productive".

The leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev, will today meet in Brussels together with the president of the European Council, Charles Michel. The trilateral meeting is taking place at a critical moment for the future of the South Caucasus as Armenia and Azerbaijan seek ways to build peace between them following the 44 Day Karabakh war in the autumn of 2020. It is taking place in the shadow of the Russian invasion of Ukraine which has caused the bbiggest crisis on the European continent since World War II. Michel hosted a previous meeting with Aliyev and Pashinyan on 14 December 2021, and a new format appears to be emerging for contact between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Observers are hesitant to call it a peace process yet, but the importance of the talks is considerable. This was highlighted yesterday when US Secretary of State Antony Blinken spoke on the phone with the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to stress the US support for the talks. In Brussels Michel is expected to urge Pashinyan and Aliyev, with who he has built a strong personal rapport over the last year, to work together to de-escalate tensions on the border, move forward with the process of agreeing the terms of a peace agreement, and implement confidence and security building measures to support their work and help build trust at the political, military and societal levels.

Shock has turned to anger right across the world as the truth about Russian atrocities in Ukraine began to emerge. The leaders of Europe, the US and other countries have strongly condemned war crimes being committed by invading Russian forces in Ukraine. In a statement on Monday (4 April) the European Union said: "We stand in full solidarity with Ukraine and the Ukrainian people in these sombre hours for the whole world. The EU will continue to firmly support Ukraine and will advance, as a matter of urgency, work on further sanctions against Russia. President Putin must stop this war immediately and unconditionally."

The United Nations announced a two-month truce in Yemen that the warring parties have agreed to. The truce, which kicks off today on the eve of Ramadan, is the first country-wide truce since 2016 and the parties agreed that it can be extended. 

The president of the European Parliament on Friday (1 April) became the most senior EU official to visit Kyiv since the Russian invasion of Ukraine started more than a month ago.  In meetings with Ukrainian president  Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and with members of the Ukrainian parliament, Roberta Metsola assured Ukrainians that the people of Europe stand with Ukraine and will help rebuild its towns and cities after the war with Russia. Metsola, who took over as the European Parliament's president in January, also said the assembly would support Ukraine's efforts to start the process of joining the European Union.  "Please believe me when I say that the European Parliament, the European Union and the people of Europe stand with Ukraine. That is why I am here today, because we stand with you," she said after arriving in the capital Kyiv.

Under the auspices of the Gulf Cooperation Council, several Yemeni leaders, politicians and activists are meeting in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia for a week-long consultation aimed at ending the war in Yemen. The Riyadh consultations are considered to be the largest Yemeni-Yemeni dialogue event since the National Dialogue Conference in 2013. 

President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and prime minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia will meet in Brussels on 6 April at the invitation of European Council president Charles Michel. The three leaders will review developments since their last meeting on 14 December 2021. In preparation of the leaders' meeting, the European Union on Wednesday (30 March) hosted a meeting of high-level officials from Armenia and Azerbaijan in Brussels to advance joint efforts to find solutions to a range of issues between both countries.   A statement posted on the website of the European External Action Service said, "the meeting between Secretary of the Security Council of the Republic of Armenia, Armen Grigoryan, and Assistant to the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Hikmet Hajiyev, was facilitated by EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar."

Ahmad Alili and Stepan Grigoryan are members of a Joint Liaison Group of Armenian and Azerbaijani experts currently finalising a report on how confidence-building measures can support lasting peace in the South Caucasus. In this jointly written paper they say that the crisis in Ukraine has reminded the people of the South Caucasus of the horrors of war. “In the South Caucasus people have suffered enough from violent conflict. They deserve a better and more peaceful future, and all of us should contribute to that objective”, they write in this opinion paper.