Armenian and Azerbaijan agree to ‘promote positive agenda’ amid tension

The Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, have met on the margins of the UN General Assembly amidst a rise in tensions between the two countries. According to almost identical readouts, they ‘exchanged views on the possibility of promoting a positive agenda in various multilateral platforms’.

It remains unclear which ‘multilateral platforms’ the ministers were referring to or what exactly the ‘positive agenda’ would entail.

‘Both Ministers emphasised the importance of peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, reviewing the progress achieved since the 2025 Washington Peace Summit Agreements. Particular attention was paid to unblocking the economic and transport infrastructure between Armenia and Azerbaijan’, the Armenian readout of the meeting said.

In this context, the sides underscored ‘trade and transit interactions’ between them ‘as practical examples of the benefits of peace’ and ‘agreed to continue their direct dialogue’.

That same day, Armenian authorities disclosed that the country had shipped aluminium foil to Azerbaijan in what appears to be its first export of products to the country since the two intensified peace talks in 2025. Azerbaijan has been regularly supplying Armenia with petroleum products since December 2025.

The Mirzoyan–Bayramov meeting came amidst renewed tension, sparked by a dispute over the origins of monasteries in Nagorno-Karabakh. There was uproar in Armenia after Azerbaijani presidential aide Hikmat Hajiyev gave a group of foreign diplomats a tour around Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding areas in mid-September, claiming that the monasteries were Caucasian Albanian rather than Armenian — a theory widely dismissed as pseudohistoric.

Azerbaijan further accused Armenia of ‘looting’ a monastery in Nagorno-Karabakh and reportedly decided to postpone a meeting of the Peace Bridge Initiative, which was due to bring Armenian and Azerbaijani civil society representatives together in Armenia, ‘until tensions subside’.

On Tuesday, Boris Navasardyan of the Armenian Press Club, which is part of the initiative, told RFE/RL that the Armenian side was ‘in favour of such planned meetings taking place rather than being postponed’.

Mutual visits of Armenian and Azerbaijani civil society representatives were launched following the August 2025 summit in Washington, which saw the initialling of a peace treaty that remains unsigned.

Days after the news of the postponement of the visit emerged, on Thursday, Security Council Secretary Alen Simonyan said that Yerevan was ‘awaiting’ the visit of Azerbaijani non-governmental organisations’ representatives.

‘We would be very happy for that visit to take place; we follow and wait for them to come’, Simonyan said, adding that the Armenian side was ‘prepared to host them very well’, comparing Azerbaijan’s hosting of Armenians earlier in 2026.

Simonyan admitted the existence of ‘general tension’, but expressed confidence that the talks and visit would resume.

The bilateral tension was also touched upon in Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s address at the UN General Assembly on Thursday. In his speech, he highlighted the unresolved issues of demining, the unclarified fates of missing people, and the release of Armenian detainees held in Azerbaijan when discussing the peace process with Azerbaijan.

There are 19 Armenians, including former Nagorno-Karabakh officials, currently being held in Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan also stated that, alongside these unresolved issues, ‘another reason that fuels pessimists is the use of conflict rhetoric from time to time in certain circles of Armenia and Azerbaijan, sometimes at the official level’.

‘I think that we, I mean Armenia and Azerbaijan, have achieved more than sufficient results, which should be more valuable for us than the use of conflict rhetoric, whether it is about history or historical-cultural monuments or anything else’, Pashinyan concluded.