Armenia's Pashinyan says war with Azerbaijan 'likely' unless peace treaty signed - AFP

TBILISI (Reuters) - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with the French AFP news agency published on Friday that a new war with Azerbaijan was "very likely" if the two countries were unable to agree a peace treaty.

"So long as a peace treaty has not been signed and such a treaty has not been ratified by the parliaments of the two countries, of course, a (new) war (with Azerbaijan) is very likely," Pashinyan was quoted as saying.

Pashinyan presided over an Armenian defeat in 2020 in a war over the breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh, during which Armenian-backed separatists lost large amounts of territory in and around the enclave.

Nagorno-Karabakh, which is internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan but inhabited primarily by ethnic Armenians, broke away from Azerbaijan's control during an extended conflict in the 1990s.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have engaged in a flurry of diplomacyaimed at a lasting peace deal in recent months, but there have also been sporadic border clashes, and the talks have not yet yielded a major breakthrough.

Both Armenia and separatist authorities in Karabakh have said that Azerbaijan has blockaded the territory since December, placing a border post on the only road connecting the region to Armenia and blocking most traffic.

(Reporting by Felix Light; Editing by Kevin Liffey)