Iran welcomes draft peace deal between Armenia, Azerbaijan

Iran has welcomed the potential peace agreement announced by Armenia and Azerbaijan to resolve nearly four decades of conflict.

Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei on Friday hailed the announcement as “a necessary and important step” to achieve “lasting” peace in the South Caucasus region.

Baghaei also expressed hope that both countries will manage to resolve outstanding issues through dialogue and sign the agreement soon.

Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday said they had agreed on the text of the peace deal, with Yerevan agreeing to surrender its claim to Karabakh.

"The negotiation process on the text of the peace agreement with Armenia has been concluded," Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov told reporters, adding "Armenia has accepted Azerbaijan's proposals on the two previously unresolved articles of the peace treaty.”

Armenia's foreign ministry also confirmed that in a statement, saying "negotiations on the draft agreement have been concluded" and "the Peace Agreement is ready for signing."

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan praised it as an "important event," saying his country is "ready to begin discussions on the place and time for signing the peace agreement."

"We believe this text is a compromise, as a peace agreement should be," he added.

Pashinyan, however, noted that two points in the draft peace accord had remained unresolved up to now, including the "non-deployment of third-party forces" along the countries' shared border.

There were also disagreements regarding the plans for both countries to mutually withdraw their legal cases from international courts.

The long-disputed region of Karabakh was at the center of two costly wars between Armenia and Azerbaijan in 2020 and the 1990s.

The region has always been internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan whose troops retook it in a 24-hour offensive.

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