BAKU: Azerbaijan and Armenia said on Thursday they had agreed a deal on disputed sections of their shared border, a new step towards normalizing relations between the historic rivals.
The deal, brokered between the two Caucasus nations, former Soviet republics, entails the return of four border villages to Azerbaijan, which were seized by Armenia during the 1990s. Both Yerevan and Baku express aspirations to achieve a comprehensive peace agreement.
The agreement follows Azerbaijan’s successful recapture last year of its breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, which had been under the control of Armenian separatists for decades. In late March, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan made the decision to return the four abandoned villages seized by Armenia in the 1990s.
However, this decision has sparked protests in Armenia, with demonstrators led by charismatic cleric Bagrat Galstanyan demanding Pashinyan’s resignation, alleging that the return of the villages could isolate nearby Armenian settlements from the rest of the country.
The border delimitation commissions of Armenia and Azerbaijan signed a protocol formalizing the adjustment of coordinates based on geodetic measurements on the ground, utilizing Soviet-era maps. The four villages—Baghanis Ayrum, Ashaghi Askipara, Kheyrimli, and Ghizilhajili—will be returned to Azerbaijani control.
Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan hailed the agreement as a significant milestone for strengthening Armenia’s sovereignty and independence. He emphasized that it established an officially delimited border for the country for the first time since its independence from the Soviet Union in 1991. He also highlighted plans to construct new roads in the area over the coming months and deploy border guards along the redrawn frontier within the next 10 days.
The territory Armenia agreed to retrocede holds strategic importance as it controls sections of a vital highway to Georgia. The resolution of this border dispute is expected to enhance security and stability in the region.
Armenia and Azerbaijan have a history marred by conflict, including two wars fought in the 1990s and in 2020 over the contested Nagorno-Karabakh region. Baku’s successful recapture of the region in September 2023 ended decades of rule by Armenian separatists and led to the displacement of over 100,000 locals into Armenia.
