Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev held a bilateral meeting in Abu Dhabi on the morning of July 10, continuing efforts to advance the peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Notably, the meeting was held for the first time without intermediaries and not on the sidelines of an international summit.
The agenda of the Pashinyan-Aliyev meeting was not disclosed in advance. It began at 09:10 local time and lasted five hours.
The meeting brought together all the officials from both delegations who have previously been involved in peace negotiations between the two countries. From the Armenian side, participants included Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan, Deputy Prime Minister Mher Grigoryan, Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan, and Special Envoy for the Armenia-Turkey normalization process Ruben Rubinyan, who has also taken part in previous Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations.
From the Azerbaijani side, the delegation included Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev, Presidential aide Hikmet Hajiyev, and Special Representative Elchin Amirbekov.
Following the talks, neither Yerevan nor Baku reported any concrete agreements. In similarly worded statements, both sides said they had discussed various aspects of the Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization agenda.
According to the readout from the Armenian MFA, the leaders discussed a range of issues related to the Armenia–Azerbaijan inter-state normalization agenda. It was confirmed that bilateral negotiations remain the most effective format for addressing all related issues, and both sides agreed to continue the dialogue in a result-oriented manner.
Pashinyan and Aliyev also reviewed progress made on border delimitation and instructed their respective state commissions to continue practical work in this area. They agreed to pursue additional confidence-building measures to support the reconciliation process between the two countries.
Azerbaijani sources reported that the peace agenda included discussions on border demarcation and the initialing of a peace agreement. The Azerbaijani side also raised the issue of the “opening and development of the Zangezur corridor”—a term Armenia has not formally acknowledged.
Commenting on the matter, Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Mnatsakan Safaryan stated, “If the principles are maintained, Armenia is not against outsourcing the Syunik road,” signaling potential flexibility in transport arrangements while maintaining Armenian sovereignty.
Azerbaijani media further indicated that the parties agreed to continue negotiations both at the working group level and higher political levels.
Russian state news agency TASS cited a source as saying the meeting aimed at “resolving contradictions surrounding the peace treaty in order to sign it by the end of the year.”
The Kremlin also welcomed the Armenian-Azerbaijani talks in Abu Dhabi. “We, of course, welcome the fact of such direct dialogue, and we have repeatedly said at various levels that we would welcome the earliest possible signing of a peace treaty,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told journalists at a press briefing in Moscow.
