The European Union will host talks between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan by the end of October to try to reduce tensions between the arch-foes following Baku's lightning offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh, EU chief Charles Michel told AFP on Thursday, October 5.
"The goal is to have this meeting by the end of October and we will fix the date together, with (Armenian) Prime Minister (Nikol) Pashinyan and (Azerbaijani) President (Ilham) Aliyev," Michel said on the sidelines of a summit of the 47-nation European Political Community in Spain.
And it shows that this unique political platform, this intergovernmental and leaders' platform, is relevant. It is relevant because in addition to the plenary session, in addition to the round tables, which allow for a sincere and direct exchange of views on fundamental challenges that we are facing together on the European continent, there is the possibility to have many informal bilateral conversations at the level of the leaders. This is what we did here, and this is useful because it is helpful to prepare the next steps. And the next steps will be – for Azerbaijan and Armenia – that meeting that is supposed to take place by the end of October.
