Areg Kochinyan, a member of the Armenian civil society group that visited Baku on November 21–22, stated during a press conference that their visits to Azerbaijan, аs well as reciprocal visits by Azerbaijani experts to Armenia, will continue under the Peace Bridge initiative. During the trip, the Armenian delegation met with Hikmet Hajiyev, assistant to the President of Azerbaijan.
“Hajiyev asked us to convey to Armenian society that for Azerbaijan, the war is over. The Armenia-Azerbaijan conflict, from their perspective, is finished. They want to move from a ‘non-war’ situation to one of peace,” Kochinyan said, as reported by Panorama.am .
“He emphasized that this message is very important for them to transmit via us to Armenian society: that Azerbaijan seeks comprehensive and long-term peace with Armenia and is ready to move forward on that path. They also stress that Azerbaijan has no territorial claims against Armenia,” he added.
Kochinyan noted that the respective authorities in both Armenia and Azerbaijan were involved in organizing the visits and ensuring participants’ security.
“We asked our Azerbaijani counterparts how they felt in Yerevan. They said they felt safe. I can say the same regarding our safety in Baku,” he said.
Naira Sultanyan, another participant, added that during the meeting, they had directly raised the issue of Armenian prisoners of war with Hajiyev.
Representatives of Armenia’s civil society visited Baku on November 20–21 as part of a reciprocal visit initiative. On November 20, the Armenian government approved an AMD 18 million budget for charter flights between Yerevan and Baku.
The earlier visit of Azerbaijani civil society representatives to Armenia drew criticism, particularly because the delegation included Dilara Efendiyeva, who had previously taken part in the blockade of Nagorno-Karabakh as an “eco-activist.”
