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During this year’s United Nations climate conference COP29, host-country Azerbaijan will strive to act as a bridge-builder between all members of the international community, finding common ground among countries on key issues like climate finance and energy transition but also to advance the peace agenda as global conflicts continue to take a heavy toll on people’s lives and the environment.

Elchin Amirbayov, Representative of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan for Special Assignments, said in an interview with NE Global in Baku early this month that his main portfolio is normalization between Armenia and Azerbaijan and COP29 has a certain role.

“One of the recent confidence-building measures which were achieved between Armenia and Azerbaijan was this deal which was reached last December (COP28 in Dubai) between the two countries when there was an arrangement on mutual freeing of some detainees and also exchange of diplomatic support to each other. So, Armenia lifted its veto on Azerbaijan’s application to host COP29 and reciprocally from our side we also agreed that Armenia would be part of the executive committee for that global climate conference. Of course, that was a major breakthrough because it was for the first time that through direct low-level contacts, we were able to get this CBM (Confidence Building Measure) and that also showed that both countries are able to sort out their differences in direct, bilateral contacts without any third-part intervention,” Amirbayov said.

Now that the whole world’s eyes are focused on Baku hosting COP29, it is a good opportunity for Armenia and Azerbaijan to finally sign the peace agreement, he argued.  “The opinion shared by both Yerevan and Baku is that today we are in a much more promising situation,” the Azeri President’s special representative opined.

“The peace agreement is now on the table, so we continue our work. And we’re cautiously optimistic because we believe that it is doable to finalize negotiations to this text before COP29 even,” he said. “I think it’s quite doable. It would give a strong signal also to the outside world that one of the most ancient and longest and tragic conflicts on the European continent in the post-Soviet space is coming to an end so I believe both countries and peoples of Armenia and Azerbaijan should be ready for this positive outcome,” Amirbayov added.