Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan expressed hope Thursday that a meeting scheduled next week with President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan will see agreements to launch peace talks with Baku.

Speaking at his cabinet meeting, Pashinyan said Armenia has proposed concrete and reasonable solutions for demarcation and delimitation, opening of regional connections and ruling out military escalation in Nagorno Karabakh.

He also said that Azerbaijan’s continued claims that Yerevan has rejected Baku’s proposals were groundless.

“I once again express Armenia’s readiness to sign a peace treaty with Azerbaijan. Armenia is ready to immediately launch peace talks. My meeting with the President of the European Council Charles Michel and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev is scheduled for April 6 in Brussels. And I hope to discuss and agree at that meeting with the President of Azerbaijan all issues relating to the launch of peace talks,” Pashinyan said.

Within its proposals Armenia is ready to open with Azerbaijan the road and railway, but considers it necessary to sign an agreement of de jure significance with Azerbaijan, Pashinyan said.

“Why?” he asked. “Because we see a very serious risks when Armenia builds both the road and the railway, and Azerbaijan refuses to open the border. And it will turn out that neither Armenia, nor Azerbaijan and third countries will be able to use the infrastructure that required several hundred million dollars of investment, and Armenia will just lose several hundred million dollars.”

The discussion on opening transit links with Azerbaijan was held in Brussels on December 14 of last year in talks mediated by Michel. Pashinyan said he hopes that the upcoming meeting will cement those issues as soon as Azerbaijan agrees to the proposal laid out by Armenia.

He went on to accuse Azerbaijan of escalating tensions at the border in order to resume military operations.

The prime minister argued that since a meeting with Aliyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi in November of last year, during which an agreement was reach to begin the process of demarcation and delimitation of borders, Azerbaijan has not submitted any proposals and has rejected those presented by Armenia.

“Azerbaijan either does not accept or does not respond to these proposals. What does it mean? In fact it means that Azerbaijan is trying to keep the tension at the border and the opportunity of resuming military operations also during the demarcation process, in order to present territorial claims against Armenia and if these demands are not met, to resort to military provocations, said Pashinyan. “This is an unacceptable approach.”

Pashinyan also accused Aliyev and Azerbaijan of deliberately violating the November 9, 2020 agreement when Azerbaijani forces invaded the Parukh village in Artsakh’s Askeran and advanced their units onto the Karaglukh Heights.

“We regret to register the fact that despite clear statements made by the Russian Defense Ministry, the U.S., France and the U.N., the Azerbaijani military invasion into the area of responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno Karabakh still continues as of today. We expect that the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno Karabakh will take concrete steps to withdraw the Azerbaijani troops from the area of responsibility of the peacekeepers and to restore the status quo recorded in the November 9, 2020 trilateral statement,” said Pashinyan.

“We also expect that the actions or possible inaction of the Russian peacekeepers during and after the invasion properly will be investigated,” Pashinyan said.

“Let’s not forget that before these events the Azerbaijani military was firing mortars for 10 consecutive days at the village of Khramort. In some villages of Nagorno Karabakh the Azerbaijani troops were opening small arms fire and still continue firing at residential homes and farming tractors, with farmers inside. Such cases happened in Nor Shen, Amaras and Taghavard villages, while on October 9 of 2021 a farmer was shot dead by Azerbaijani sniper fire at the presence of Russian peacekeepers in Martakert while working in the agricultural fields,” Pashinyan added.

Pashinyan warned that the obvious goal of such actions by Azerbaijan is to complete ethnic cleansing of Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh.

The prime minister also discussed Azerbaijani government efforts to appropriate Armenian religious and cultural landmarks, as well as the recent practice of intimidating the Armenian population of Artsakh through announcements blasted over loud speakers.

“We expect from the international community a targeted assessment of Azerbaijan’s actions in Nagorno Karabakh because the Armenian population in Nagorno Karabakh is being terrorized every day, literally every single day, including the cut-off of the gas supply, and its goal is to displace them from their homes and their homeland,” Pashinyan said.