Armenia and Azerbaijan continue to work on “one or two wordings” in their negotiations over a peace treaty, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said in parliament on Thursday, October 31, RFE/RL’s Armenian service reports.

Mirzoyan expressed cautious optimism that they will also be agreed upon in the near future and the text of the treaty will be ready for signing. The minister, however, did not specify which particular points the negotiations are currently focused on.

Arayik Harutiunyan, chief of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s staff, similarly struck an optimistic note in parliament yesterday when he spoke about the Armenian-Azerbaijani peace process, stating that he saw an opportunity to resolve the sticking points in the draft peace treaty.

Earlier, Pashinyan advocated for signing a peace treaty with Baku based on the points that both sides have already agreed upon, indicating that this constitutes about 80 percent of the draft. He noted that the sides could work on the remaining issues later. Baku, however, rejected this initiative.

Optimism regarding the possibility of Armenia and Azerbaijan signing a peace treaty in the near future grew after Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met in Kazan on the sidelines of the BRICS summit hosted by Russia earlier this month.

Few details of the October 24 talks were officially reported, but a source revealed to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service that both Pashinyan and Mirzoyan informed their political allies after the Kazan meeting that some progress had been made on the points of the draft treaty over which the sides continue to have differences.

The Armenian foreign minister also addressed the border demarcation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, stating that the sides will soon officially notify each other about the entry into force of the regulations for joint activities of Armenian and Azerbaijani government commissions dealing with the border delimitation and demarcation process.

Following the Kazan meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, the presidents of both countries ratified those regulations.

Mirzoyan expressed hope that the border demarcation process will continue.

Armenia and Azerbaijan engaged in fence-mending talks following a deadly war in 2020 over Nagorno-Karabakh, during which Baku regained control of much of the breakaway region. Azerbaijan completed its takeover of the region in 2023 when more than 100,000 ethnic Armenians fled hostilities and resettled in Armenia.

The United States and other international partners of Armenia and Azerbaijan have repeatedly expressed their support for a peace treaty between the two South Caucasus nations, encouraging them to finalize it already this year.