At the request of Aravot.am, political technologist Vigen Hakobyan commented on some of the issues discussed by Michel after the Pashinyan-Aliyev-Charles Michel trilateral meeting in Brussels. “It was obvious from Charles Michel’s statement that the negotiation process was directly on the agenda set by Azerbaijan and Turkey, that is, the 5 principles put forward by Azerbaijan, to which Armenia agreed, were officially discussed. As for the six points, which also did not contain anything serious, they were just about status, we saw in Charles Michel’s statement that there was no provision or hint about status. We were talking about 5 points, the parties had undertaken obligations that the demarcation-delimitation commission would start its work, the preparations for the peace treaty, etc.,” our interlocutor said.
“I think the most obvious proof that the Armenian side has already lowered the status bar during this meeting is that Charles Michel said the following: it is necessary to pay attention to the rights and security of the ethnic Armenian population in Karabakh. In other words, the people of Artsakh are ethnic Armenians, who are a national minority in Azerbaijan. This is what the term ethnic Armenians means. It follows from these words that in the territory of Artsakh, which is part of Azerbaijan, there can be both ethnic Armenians and ethnic Azeris. It is about the guarantees of the security and rights of ethnic Armenians in Artsakh, which is in the territory of Azerbaijan. The question naturally arises as to who will provide those guarantees and security.
Most likely, who will own that land, that is, Azerbaijan. In short, “ethnic Armenians” is a very dangerous thesis. I do not remember when such a formulation took place. In my opinion, the bar has already been lowered during those negotiations, Charles Michel just says that we are making efforts not to expel the ethnic Armenians there at once, to protect their rights and security. Who will preserve it, how will they preserve it? What status will it have? Will there be cultural autonomy or other autonomy? It does not open, because there is no word about status at all in that statement,” said Vigen Hakobyan.
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In response to our question about what is expected in a worst-case scenario, and is another solution or scenario possible, the political technologist answered, “It is a rather strange process because the normalization of the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations and the developments around Artsakh take place in two formats. On the one hand, there is the EU format, under the auspices of which the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan meet in person with the participation of Charles Michel, some decisions are made, “deadlines” are set, on the other hand, there is the fact that Russian peacekeeping forces are in Artsakh within the logic of the trilateral agreement.”
Gohar HAKOBYAN
