Azerbaijan is proposing to sign a document with Armenia on the basic principles of a future peace treaty as an interim measure as they wrangle over a broader deal, a senior Azerbaijani official said on Sunday.

Both Armenia and Azerbaijan have repeatedly said they want to sign a peace treaty to end the conflict over the former breakaway Azerbaijani region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Judges at the World Court on Friday ordered Azerbaijan to let ethnic Armenians who fled Nagorno-Karabakh in September return, and to keep the Armenians remaining in the enclave safe, as part of a set of emergency measures.

Azerbaijan in September recaptured the region, then controlled by its ethnic Armenian majority despite being internationally recognised as part of Azerbaijan.

The Turkish government slammed President Joe Biden and other leaders Monday who recognized the Armenian genocide, calling them “worthless opportunist politicians.”

“The systematic killing and deportation of more than a million Armenians by Ottoman Empire forces in the early 20th century was ‘genocide,’ the United States formally declared on Saturday… While previous presidents have offered somber reflections of the dark moment in history, they have studiously avoided using the term genocide out of concern that it would complicate relations with Turkey, a NATO ally and important power in the Middle East.” (AP News)

Both sides applaud Biden’s decision:

REPRESENTATIVES OF AMERICA’S government have not always minced their words about the fate that befell Armenians in 1915. At the time, Henry Morgenthau Sr, the American ambassador to the Ottoman Empire, called it “a campaign of race extermination”. Joe Biden is set to describe the killing and mass deportation of Armenians as “genocide”. That is not unprecedented—the last sitting president to use the term was Ronald Reagan in 1981—but it is rare enough to be noteworthy. Mr Biden is sure to anger Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

More than a century after the Ottoman Empire’s killing of an estimated 1.5 million Armenian civilians, President Biden is preparing to declare that the atrocities were an act of genocide, according to officials familiar with the internal debate. The action would signal that the American commitment to human rights outweighs the risk of further fraying the U.S. alliance with Turkey.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned that lawmakers in his country may recognize the deaths of Native Americans as a genocide after Congress rebuffed Turkey and voted to acknowledge and condemn the Armenian genocide.

The proposed move, which would be largely symbolic, came after the Senate unanimously passed a bill recognizing the Turkish genocide of more than a million Armenians in the early 20th century.

Erdogan threatened the tit-for-tat while speaking on a pro-government news channel on Monday, according to the Independent.

The Republican-led United States Senate on Friday adopted a resolution recognising the early 20th century killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as "genocide", a label Turkey rejects.

The move comes after the House of Representatives in October approved a similar resolution.

Armenians say up to 1.5 million of their kin were killed between 1915 and 1917 as the Ottoman Empire was falling apart.

Turkey rejected the US House of Representatives' official recognition of the "Armenian genocide" a century ago, warning it risks harming ties "at an extremely fragile time" for international and regional security.

In a landmark move on Tuesday, the House approved a resolution calling the early 20th-century killing of Armenians by Ottoman Turks "genocide". The chamber voted 405 to 11 in support of the measure.

The US House of Representatives voted overwhelming Tuesday to recognize the systematic mass killings of Armenians at the hands of the Ottoman Turks during World War I as genocide.

The historic non-binding resolution passed 405-11 and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said she was honored to join her colleagues "in solemn remembrance of one of the great atrocities of the 20th century."

Most historians agree that the Ottoman Empire committed a brutal genocide against the Armenians from 1915 to 1923, resulting in the death of 1.5 million men, women, and children.