ISTANBUL

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and European Council head Charles Michel on Sunday welcomed the resumption of the Brussels format to normalize relations between Baku and Yerevan.

“President Ilham Aliyev expressed his gratitude to Charles Michel for his efforts in this direction,” said a statement by the Azerbaijani presidency, following their meeting in Brussels.

The statement said the meeting discussed events related to Baku-Yerevan relations in the past months, including negotiations in Washington and the current situation at the border, in addition to the agenda for the tripartite meeting involving Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan later in the day.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov and his Armenian counterpart Ararat Mirzoyan took part in peace talks in the US capital between April 30 and May 3, with meetings at the White House and State Department, under the mediation of US Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

Relations between the two former Soviet republics have been tense since 1991 when Armenia occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, a territory internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, and seven adjacent regions.

Most of the territory was liberated by Baku during a war in the fall of 2020, which ended after a Russian-brokered peace agreement and also opened the door to normalization.

Tensions between the neighboring countries increased in recent months over the Lachin corridor, the only land route giving Armenia access to Karabakh.