Azerbaijan Leader to Skip EU-led Talks with Armenia

Azerbaijan's president, Ilham Aliyev, will not participate in talks this week with Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Spain.

Azerbaijani state media and a government official said Wednesday that Aliyev would skip the EU-brokered meeting that also includes the leaders of France and Germany, citing what they described as pro-Armenian statements from France and EU Council President Charles Michel. The EU said the talks would be aimed at advancing long-running peace negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia as well as the situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh region. Last month, Azerbaijan carried out an operation to retake control of Nagorno-Karabakh from ethnic Armenian separatists. Nagorno-Karabakh is entirely within Azerbaijan but had been under ethnic Armenian control since 1994, until parts of it were reclaimed by Azerbaijan during a war in 2020. Some information for this report came from Agence France-Presse and Reuters.