Pashinyan ready to meet with Aliyev in Brussels in format agreed upon in Oct - Armenian Foreign Ministry

YEREVAN. Nov 25 (Interfax) - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan is ready to meet with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Brussels on December 7 in the format agreed upon in October, Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman Vahan Hunanyan told Interfax.

"The previous meeting in Prague, where an agreement to continue the meetings was reached, took place in the quadripartite format, which means the format and the meeting participants should be the same," Hunanyan said.

Pashinyan, Aliyev, European Council President Charles Michel and French President Emmanuel Macron held the quadripartite meeting in Prague on October 6.

"Any claims by the Azerbaijani side that the Armenian side is trying to thwart the meeting and the peace process are divorced from reality. The Republic of Armenia is ready for the December 7 meeting in accordance with the agreement reached in Prague and the respective format," the ministry said.

Azerbaijan "has not responded as of this moment to the peace treaty proposals" handed over to Baku by Yerevan at a meeting of the foreign ministers in Washington on November 7, he said.

Aliyev said earlier on Friday that he will not meet with Pashinyan in Brussels on December 7 as planned.

"The meeting in Brussels was scheduled to take place on December 7. Yet [Azerbaijani presidential assistant] Hikmet Hajiyev told me yesterday that he had been contacted by the office of [European Council President] Charles Michel and was told that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had conditioned his participation in the meeting on the presence of French President [Emmanuel] Macron there. This means there will be no meeting," Aliyev said.

He said he viewed Pashinyan's demand that Macron take part in the Brussels meeting as "an attempt at thwarting peace talks." Aliyev said he believes that France cannot take part in the process of normalizing Baku-Yerevan relations.