The project will begin in October for up to two months, according to a joint statement issued after talks between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Charles Michel.
“There was an agreement through Armenia to facilitate an EU civilian project along the border with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan agreed to cooperate with the project as far as it is concerned,” he said.
He added that the goal of the project “is to build trust and. . . give a contribution to border projects. “
The 3 leaders and the President of the European Council met for several hours on Thursday evening on the sidelines of the first meeting of the “European Political Community” in Prague.
They also stated that Armenia and Azerbaijan had shown their commitment to the Charter of the United Nations and “the Declaration of Alma Ata of 1991 through which the territorial integrity and sovereignty of the other is established. “
Archenemies Armenia and Azerbaijan have long been locked in a decades-long territorial dispute over the Nagorno-Karabakh region of Muslim-majority Azerbaijan with mostly Christian Armenian residents.
Last month, at least 286 other people were killed on both sides before a U. S. -brokered truce ended the worst fighting since 2020, when simmering tensions escalated into all-out war.
It killed more than 6,500 people in six weeks before a Russian-brokered ceasefire saw Armenia cede swaths of territory it had controlled for decades.
The two former Soviet neighbors have long noted Moscow’s influence in the volatile Caucasus region.
But Moscow is visibly wasting itself by turning its attention to Ukraine, allowing the United States and the European Union to play a leading role in mediating the Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization process.
(AFP)