Bilateral, Not Mediated: Why Last Week’s Yerevan Meeting Mattered

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On October 21, 2025, an Azerbaijani Airlines (AZAL) Gulfstream G650, call sign 4K-ASG, touched down at Yerevan’s Zvartnots Airport. It was a historic event, commented many.

It was the first time an AZAL flight had landed in Armenia for three decades, claimed others. In fact, neither was correct though such minor inaccuracies probably don't matter. The remarks came spontaneously, born from a general sense of euphoria about the development, even if at first mainly from the Azerbaijani side.

Not that there appeared to be any widespread outrage in Armenia, despite some claims to the contrary. Most media instead seemed somewhat muted. Those that did decry the development were simply against the process of normalising relations between Yerevan and Baku anyway. In that context, what mattered most was not the flight per se, but its organisation and outcome that did mark a turning point.

There were five Azerbaijani activists, journalists and political scientists onboard to meet counterparts from local civil society in the Armenian capital. Such meetings are not new, of course, but this was bilaterally organised without any external intermediaries. When AZAL flew to and from Yerevan in 2006 and 2011, the last I personally remember, it had been under the respective auspices of the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) and Russian Federation.

The first ferried the OSCE Minsk Group from Baku to Yerevan while the second took Azerbaijan’s Sheikh-ul-Islam Allahshukur Pashazade to Armenia to attend a meeting of the Commonwealth of Independent States (CIS) Inter-Religious Council. A year earlier, the Catholicos of All Armenians, Karekin II, visited Baku. They had all been high level visits organised by foreign bodies. 

In mid-2001, for example, the United Nations announced the launch of World Food Program (WFP) flights directly between Yerevan and Baku for UN staff, humanitarian organisations, and some others. It was already flying between Yerevan and Tbilisi for the same purpose that also included civil society actors at times. They were also not widely reported – or even at all. Indeed, this is common for the route.

Last December, for example, a flight from Yerevan to Baku was spotted by eagle-eyed Open Source Intelligence (OSINT) aficionados on FlightRadar24. Zvartnots airport responded to media enquiries by saying that it was a charter flight “ordered by an international organisation,’’ adding that this had not been the only one. According to the Armenian Ministry of Territorial Administration and Infrastructure, there had been dozens of such flights between the two capitals over the past few years.

“Since 2020, 66 state flights have been operated between Yerevan and Baku in both directions to transport international delegations,” the ministry announced. That should not come as a surprise given an often shuttle diplomacy-like activity in play.

Nonetheless, the arrival of the blue-liveried AZAL civilian flight last week was the most symbolic in the past 14 years that could have wide-ranging implications if repeated. It followed the participation of Murad Muradov, founder and co-director of Baku’s Topchubashov Centre at last month’s NATO Parliamentary Association (PA) Rose Roth seminar in Yerevan. Unlike last week, however, Muradov had to travel a much longer route via Istanbul.

Again, such visits have occurred in the past. Prior to 2020, for example, Armenian participants travelled to Baku for the same or similar international events. Even the nationalist Armenian Revolutionary Federation – Dashnaktsutyun sent a high-level delegation to Baku for a Socialist International conference in 2010. That has always been the case for international events in both countries if a delegation is satisfied with the security arrangements provided.

Aiding this situation, neither side requires visas thanks to a 1992 CIS agreement on a waiver system between member states, despite claims from some opposition activists  opposed to a formally negotiated peace. Understandably given the three decades long conflict, they simply need invitations and a green light from their respective national security agencies.

In February 2022, two Azerbaijani MPs visited Yerevan for a EuroNest Parliamentary Assembly meeting just as a larger group had ten years earlier. The last known mutual exchange between the sides occurred in 2019 when small groups of journalists visited each other prior to the 2020 war. That too was under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group but did not involve direct flights according to media.

In that context, last week’s direct flight was a welcome symbolic first, but whatever the route it can only be hoped that it marks the resumption of more mutual exchanges in the nearest future. There were no major issues. Even minor criticism from a segment of Armenian civil society was to be expected. It concerned the past activities of one participant from Baku that appeared to be misrepresented in the hope of creating a significant scandal that actually didn't emerge as intended.

True, it would have been better to have none at all – if that was ever possible. The reality is that it still probably isn't. Moreover, it is likely impossible to find any participant to include who won’t irk someone. Boris Navarsardyan, a veteran of Track II events over the decades touched upon this in an interview with the Armenian Civilnet online platform afterwards. “This is the only way to convey everything that we discussed and everything that we proposed [to official bodies],” he said. “I think the lineup was generally adequate for this […].” 

Navarsardyan also stressed the bilateral nature of the talks, including in an interview with AnewZ. In recent years, it is this format without mediators or facilitators that has proven itself more successful than what preceded it. It now only remains to be seen whether Armenian civil society will visit Baku to continue the process, something that Navarsardyan says all participants of last week’s meeting hope for. The process was transparent and the only secrecy concerned security arrangements.

This allowed the Armenian and Azerbaijani participants to not only convey information with each other but also to the general public. Navarsardyan, also Honorary President of the Yerevan Press Club, said coordinated media exchanges could also occur, and that much needed people-to-people contact between the residents of Armenian and Azerbaijani border villages could finally become a reality. If so, that would be a particularly welcome and important development.

Last year, Armenia and Azerbaijan demarcated 12.7 kilometres of their common border on its Tavush-Qazakh section. As Azerbaijani Internally Displaced People (IDPs) return to their former places of residence elsewhere in regions taken by Armenian forces in the early 1990s but recaptured or returned in the 44-day war, communities on both sides will gradually find themselves in close proximity to each other again. They will need to readjust to this new reality and forge new relations.

Moreover, while civil society and international organisations can play a role here, it will be up to the communities and local authorities to make it work. This potentially new format for bilateral Track II discussions is also particularly important given that the governments themselves will have to play a significant role. There will clearly be national security issues, the need for cooperation with border guard services, and if cross-border commerce were to emerge, customs agencies too. 

Assuming that the signing of the already initialled agreement, “On the establishment of peace and interstate relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan,” draws ever closer, it could at least now be sooner rather than later.

“That’s one small step across borders, [but] one giant leap for dialogue,” commented Topchubashov director Rusif Huseynov, a participant from the Azerbaijani side, on X. Many others would agree that it is imperative that it succeeds.

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