Speaking yesterday Monday (26 June), the Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly reiterated his country's insistence on an "international mechanism" to facilitate dialogue between Karabakh Armenians and Baku. This is a key demand that has long been rejected by Baku, who insist that such discussion are an international affair of Azerbaijan.
Responding to recent comments made by the Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov, about which you can read more in full here, Alen Simonyan said Baku's refusal to acquiesce to Armenia's demand is "running away from reality".
"It will not be a solution to the issue, and it is not convenient to them to not discuss these issues. I'm sure they will come to it at some phase. Even now, I believe it is being done to set a high standard before the [peace] talks and after that—as an initial phase of talks...it is being done for those steps," said Simonyan.
"For us, the protection of Armenian rights is the most important matter. That matter cannot simply be forgotten," Speaker Simonyan added.
Separately, also on Monday the Vice Speaker of the Armenian National Assembly Ruben Rubinyan told reporters that they "expect progress" in the upcoming Armenia-Azerbaijan talks in Washington D.C.
"Armenia’s position is that we want to have the kind of a text of a peace treaty that would be in our interests and would be possible to sign. Naturally, this is a difficult process, there are issues around which we disagree. But there are also issues that we already agree upon. But there are disagreements on main issues," Rubinyan said.
Bayramov's comments
Last week, Azerbaijani FM said of Armenia's demand for an international mechanism to facilitate dialogue between Stepanakert and Baku:
"We do not accept such a precondition [for the next round of negotiations] for several reasons. The most fundamental is as follows. This is an internal, sovereign matter. Azerbaijan's constitution and several international conventions to which Azerbaijan is a party provide all the necessary conditions to guarantee the rights of this population."