image

A villager looks on standing on a road in the village of Voskepar in northeastern Armenia on March 27, 2024. Peering through the window at a bustling crowd outside the Voskepar village council in northeastern Armenia, mayor Ishkhan Aghbalyan said locals are on edge over arch-foe Azerbaijan's claims to their lands. The small village's residents have started gathering daily at the dusty patch to share their fears since Armenia's Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan signalled in March his readiness to make territorial concessions to Baku to put some momentum into stalled peace talks. If it goes ahead, Voskepar could end up isolated from the rest of the country and some houses could fall into territory controlled by mortal enemy Azerbaijan, as many Armenians see their Caucasus neighbour. Last autumn, Azerbaijani troops recaptured the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region from Armenian separatists in a lightning offensive that effectively ended a bloody three-decade standoff between the Caucasus neighbours over control of the mountainous region. While both Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev say a wider peace agreement between the rivals is within the reach, lingering territorial disputes pose a constant threat of renewed war. Baku has claims over eight villages currently held by Armenia -- four along the countries' shared border and four more in exclaves deeper in Armenian territory. Pashinyan has signalled willingness to agree to Baku's demand for the unilateral demand of four frontier villages -- with the remaining territorial disputes to be addressed at border delimitation talks. (Photo by KAREN MINASYAN / AFP) (KEYSTONE/AFP/KAREN MINASYAN)