Official of the self-declared Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), Tigran Petrosyan, claimed on Monday (31 July) that talks between representatives of the NKR and Azerbaijan scheduled for Tuesday (1 August) in the Slovak capital Bratislava were "abandoned" by Baku.
Speaking in a live broadcast on his Facebook page, Petrosyan said "a meeting between representatives of Artsakh and Azerbaijan was supposed to take place in [Slovakia’s capital] Bratislava tomorrow, but Azerbaijan abandoned that meeting the day before yesterday without an explanation."
He added that Azerbaijan wants the talks to take place in Baku or another Azerbaijani city, something which is unacceptable for the de facto NKR leadership. Without elaborating, he said that Western officials would meet in Yerevan in the coming days to discuss the issue with de facto NKR officials. He also said that Moscow is proposing a meeting in Yevlakh, Azerbaijan. Baku did not immediately react to Petrosyan's claims.
RFE/RL's Armenian Service had previously reported that a meeting between representatives of Stepanakert and Baku was scheduled for early July in Bulgaria, but the talks did not happen as the two sides could not agree on the meeting's agenda.