The presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan met again in Brussels at the mediation of the European Council President Charles Michel. The Azerbaijani side seems to be satisfied with that meeting. During the government session, the Prime Minister of Armenia did not express particular enthusiasm in this regard, noting that “implementing the peace agenda is not easy, and the possible solutions are not obvious.” The representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, as usual after such meetings, expressed her country’s jealous attitude.
The fact that in the only official document regarding it, Michel’s statement, there is not a single word about Nagorno-Karabakh and the Minsk Group indirectly speaks about the low effectiveness of the meeting. Thus, Aliyev’s statement a few days ago that the Karabakh problem is not discussed with Armenia, it is Azerbaijan’s internal matter is confirmed. Of course, that statement is not the whole truth. However, Aliyev discusses issues related to Artsakh, but with the Russian side.
Witness the history of Aghavno and Berdzor, in which Armenia’s participation was zero. In my opinion, Azerbaijan and Turkey have every opportunity to continue negotiations with Russia on such issues, and unfortunately, it is not difficult to predict that the results of these negotiations will not be in our favor. The issue of prisoners has apparently been discussed in Brussels, judging from the same official statement. “President Michel emphasized the importance of further release of Armenian detainees for Azerbaijan.”
But the fact that Michel emphasized that importance does not mean that Aliyev is ready to return our prisoners now. It is very possible that he is conditioning this return, either explicitly or by implication, on actual progress on the “peace treaty.” That there is no such progress so far can be concluded from the comparison of the texts of the statements made by the same Michel’s office in different periods. August 31, 2022: “The parties agree to intensify substantive work on the promotion of a peace treaty regulating interstate relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and instruct foreign ministers to meet within a month to work on draft texts.” But such an instruction has already been given. April 7, 2022: “Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev also expressed their desire to quickly move forward in the direction of signing a peace agreement and instructed their foreign ministers to prepare a future peace agreement.”
Read also
What is due to the fact that the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan are giving essentially the same “commission blood” for the second time? Probably, due to the fact that some “positive movement” should be registered with the results of the meeting. Which isn’t really there.
Aram Abrahamyan
