Pashinyan says Armenia, Azerbaijan will not deploy foreign forces on border after peace deal

Russian President Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan meet in Moscow

FILE PHOTO: Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan attends a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin on the sidelines of a summit of leaders of nations, which are members of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS), at the Kremlin in Moscow, Russia October 8, 2024. Sergei Ilnitsky/Pool via REUTERS/File Photo

Source: REUTERS

Armenia and Azerbaijan will not deploy third-country forces along their border after the two sides sign a peace agreement, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Thursday.

Officials in Yerevan and Baku said earlier they had agreed the text of a peace agreement to end more than three decades of conflict between their countries, a sudden breakthrough in a fitful and often bitter peace process.

Russian peacekeepers completed a withdrawal last May from Karabakh, a region in Azerbaijan that had a mostly Armenian population and which Azeri forces recaptured in a lightning offensive in September 2023. But Moscow still has personnel in Armenia along its long border with Azerbaijan.

The European Union also has a monitoring mission in Armenia, whose mandate it has extended until February 2027.

This article was produced by Reuters news agency. It has not been edited by Global South World.

By Reuters