Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in a Facebook video posted today, said that yesterday’s meeting between himself and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in Davos doesn’t signal the start of a new round of official negotiations on the Karabakh conflict.

Responding to comments appearing in the social media that Armenia is secretly negotiating with Baku on the Karabakh conflict, Pashinyan argued that yesterday’s meeting on the sidelines of the World Economic Forum was not planned in advance should not be regarded as the start of a new negotiations process.

“As I have said, these aren’t official meetings, and neither are they the official start of a negotiations process,” Pashinyan said.

Pashinyan said that yesterday’s meeting was proposed by the Forum’s organizers when they found out that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan were at the same venue.

The Armenian prime minister said that he and Aliyev reviewed the history of the negotiations process, its prospects for success or failure, and that specific components of any settlement plan weren’t discussed.

“It was also, in some manner, an opportunity to exchange our perceptions on the negotiations process and to meet. In this context, I want to stress that at the core of these discussions is that which we talk about publicly,” Pashinyan said in an apparent attempt to counter criticism that he is reneging on his earlier promise to keep the people abreast of developments in the Karabakh conflict settlement process.

Commenting on the rumors that yesterday’s meeting signals the start of a new round of negotiations between Yerevan and Baku, Pashinyan said that those “seeking conspiracies” were out of touch with reality.

“It’s a result of not understanding reality, when someone thinks that our government, or I personally, is involved in any conspiracy,” said Pashinyan.