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The deputy head of the opposition Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), Armen Ashotyan, has reacted to the statement following the meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders in Prague late on Thursday.

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met there together with French President Emmanuel Macron and European Council President Charles Michel on the sidelines of the first gathering of the European Political Community.

“Armenia and Azerbaijan confirmed their commitment to the UN Charter and the Alma-Ata 1991 Declaration through which both sides recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty. They confirmed that this will serve as basis for the work of the commissions on delimitation and that the next meeting of these commissions will take place in Brussels by the end of October,” the Armenian government’s readout of the meeting said.

“Armenia agreed to facilitate a civilian EU mission alongside the border with Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan agreed to cooperate with this mission as far as it is concerned. The mission will start in October for a maximum period of two months,” the statement added.

In a public post on Facebook on Friday, Ashotyan claimed the deployment of a civilian EU mission on Armenia’s border “will not prevent further Azerbaijani encroachments against Armenia”.

“Rejecting the launch of a mission in Azerbaijan, Aliyev clearly showed his attitude towards this mechanism,” he wrote.

“The EU border mission is the first institutional step towards Armenia's geopolitical turnaround which is fraught with consequences.”

Also, the politician underscored that the Alma-Ata Declaration does not provide a basis for the countries to recognize each other's territorial integrity.

“The countries did it under the UN Charter when joining the UN, but it did not stop Azerbaijan from attacking and occupying sovereign Armenian soil,” Ashotyan said.

He further underlined that the statement made no mention of Artsakh, the immediate release of Armenian prisoners of war and the preservation of Armenian cultural heritage in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“The photos and videos of the Prague meeting indicate that Armenia, led by Nikol, remains out of international politics with the status of an orphan.

“The Armenian people have only one month to prevent the final explosion of the mine planted under their own existence,” the oppositionist said.