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The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan appeared together at a Euronews panel at the World Economic Forum on Tuesday, in their first joint appearance since signing a historic peace deal ending 30 years of conflict.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev described the peace agreement as “a tremendous benefit to Armenia, to Azerbaijan and to the South Caucasus, and it sets an example of how countries on very deep hostile terms can now transform into cooperation.”
“We did it, we restored justice, international law, our sovereignty, our territorial integrity, and then we achieved peace and then we stopped,” the Azerbaijan president said, adding that the two countries are “changing Eurasia”.
Armenian President Vahagn Khachaturyan thanked his Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s Aliyev for their political will in achieving peace, telling the panel he had little to add to Aliyev’s remarks because “I have to repeat the same thing.”
Khachaturyan pointed to concrete examples of the transformation, noting that residents of Yerevan can now buy Azerbaijani fuel for their cars.
“Years ago if you would have spoken about this there would have been a hostile reaction. But this is the new reality we live in,” he said. “Thank god that the leaders of our two countries chose this path, the future, the peace of our countries.”
Serbian President Aleksandar Vučić joined the panel to deliver a sombre assessment of deteriorating geopolitical conditions, describing current developments as “the divorce between Europe and the United States” and calling on smaller countries to work together.
“We now live in a world where the big fish eats the smaller fish and that’s why smaller countries must come together,” Vučić said, calling on Azerbaijan, Armenia and the wider region for strong cooperation.
Vučić warned that the spillover from US-Europe tensions would significantly hurt smaller nations, including European companies.
“This divorce between the US and Europe is not going to be just a temporary issue, it’s going to last for quite a long time and at the end we will all have to pay the price,” he said.
Watch Euronews’ panel at the World Economic Forum in Davos in its entirety in the player above.