Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that the country must be "ten times stronger" than Armenia "every day," explaining this by the need to maintain military superiority even after the initialing of a peace agreement between the two countries. He outlined his position on October 2 at the 8th Congress of the ruling New Azerbaijan Party in Baku.
Armenia is ready to recognize the territory of Azerbaijan, which includes Nagorno-Karabakh. This was stated by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.
“Those 86.6 thousand square kilometers include Nagorno-Karabakh. But it must also be stated that the issue of the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh should be discussed in the Baku-Stepanakert format,” the politician said. He expressed fear that in the absence of guarantees, the population of Nagorno-Karabakh could be subjected to ethnic cleansing.
Pashinyan also noted that Armenia agreed to the EU monitoring mission, since, unlike the CSTO, Yerevan has no signed agreements with the EU. “We compare all decisions of the CSTO with the EU. And when we see dissonance, we ask to resolve these issues. Without this, the CSTO monitoring mission cannot be effective. There is no such dissonance with the EU, since there are no agreements signed,” Pashinyan said.