Armenia and Azerbaijan have said they will exchange prisoners of war and work toward normalizing their relations, in a move welcomed by the European Union and the United States.
The two countries have been locked in a decades-long conflict over Nagorno-Karabakh, which Azerbaijan reclaimed after a lightning offensive against Armenian separatists in September.
In a joint statement issued late on Thursday night, the two sides said they had agreed to seize “a historical chance to achieve a long-awaited peace in the region” and hoped to sign a peace treaty before the end of the year.
September’s Azerbaijani offensive in Nagorno-Karabakh ended ethnic Armenians’ three decades of rule of the territory and led most of its 120,000 residents to flee the region, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
Until Thursday’s announcement, the two countries had argued bitterly on the outline of a peace process amid mutual distrust.
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