The talks came just a few hours before the announcement of the final official results of Armenia’s June 7 parliamentary elections that gave victory to the ruling Civil Contract party. Baku has made no secret of its desire to see the party led by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian reelected.

Identical readouts released by the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides gave few details the talks. They said Grigorian and Hajiyev “stressed the importance of continuing bilateral direct dialogue.”

An Azerbaijani government delegation headed by Deputy Prime Minister Shahin Mustafayev visited Armenia in late April for fresh talks on delimitating the border and establishing commercial ties between the two South Caucasus countries. It remained unclear which sections of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border could be delimited next and when.

Pashinian’s party fell short of a two-thirds majority in the new parliament, which is necessary for enacting a new Armenian constitution demanded by Azerbaijan. The constitution drafted by the Armenian Justice Ministry earlier this year needs to be approved by the parliament before being put on a referendum. Its adoption is Baku’s main precondition for signing a peace treaty with Yerevan initialed last year.

The ruling party also struggled to secure a 60 percent parliamentary majority required for enacting key laws and installing senior law-enforcement officials and judges. It reached that threshold only thanks to a highly controversial decision made by Armenia’s Central Election Commission (CEC) late on Sunday shortly after the announcement of Hajiyev’s visit.

Hakob Badalian, an Armenian political analyst, suggested that the visit was connected to the release of the final vote results rejected by the opposition as fraudulent. He said Baku was concerned about a stronger opposition presence in the Armenian parliament thwarted by the CEC.

“I don’t think that such parallels are accidental … given Azerbaijan’s motivation on the Armenian parliamentary election and Civil Contract’s retaining power,” Badalian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

But another analyst, Narek Sukiasian, saw no direct connection between the two events.

“I think the purpose of that [visit] was to discuss the peace process in the context of the Armenian election results,” he said. “Namely, how the process is going to continue and what impact the election results will have on the trajectory agreed beforehand.”

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