By Felix Light and Nailia Bagirova
TBILISI/BAKU (Reuters) — Armenia and Azerbaijan on Thursday, July 18, accused each other of blocking a proposed UK-mediated meeting between their leaders, the latest bump in the road on an on-and-off peace process aimed at ending their more than three decade-long conflict.
Both Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev were in the United Kingdom for a summit of the European Political Community at Blenheim Palace, near Oxford.
Hikmet Hajiyev, foreign policy adviser to President Aliyev, told Reuters that Armenia had rejected a proposal for the two leaders to attend a meeting to be mediated by the British.
He said: “We regard Pashinyan’s refusal to meet in London as its intention to retreat from the peace agenda.”
Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said in a statement shortly afterwards that Yerevan had offered Azerbaijan a bilateral meeting in the UK, but that Baku had declined the invitation. It said that the offer of a meeting still stood.
