Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan today said he hopes that the goal of “aggressive statements” recently emanating from Baku are not intended to scuttle negotitions to reach a peace deal.

Pashinyan, during a Q&A session in parliament today, referred to disagreements between Baku and Yerevan regarding the delimitation of their border.

In a weekend speech, Pashinyan pointed to Baku’s continuing unwillingness to recognize Armenia’s border delineated by Soviet maps and Azerbaijan’s demands for an extraterritorial corridor to the Nakhichevan exclave that would pass through Armenia’s southern Syunik Province.

“I consider recent statements from Baku to be a severe blow to the peace process,” Pashinyan said at a meeting of his Civil Contract party.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and his top aides have recently stressed that Baku and Yerevan should sign a bilateral peace treaty before agreeing on how to delimit the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

Yerevan insists that the border be delimited before any peace deal is signed.

Pashinyan’s government argues the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan was fixed by the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration.