I naturally do not believe any word Aliyev utters any longer. When he says that Pashinyan imposed a precondition, that a meeting with him in Brussels can occur only if Macron is present, is a certain misrepresentation of facts. The president of Azerbaijan needs to establish that France “has offended” him: and he is so exasperated from the declaration of the French senate and Macron’s interview, that doesn’t even want to see the face of the latter. On the other hand – was there a certain agreement in Praha to make the succeeding meeting in a four-sided format, as the Armenian Ministry of Foreign affairs presents, or is there a possibility to meet exclusively through the mediation of EU chairman Charles Michele? And if such a possibility exists, I think it needs to be exploited. Another issue is, as I already mentioned, that Moscow needs to be informed about the agreements that are or will be established in the EU in great detail and vice versa.
But I think another issue arises here. It is quite likely that Armenia is not really prone to the “Brussels format”, as during any kind of private discussion in Yerevan Putin expressed his strong desire to be a “one-person mediator”, and possibly made some proposals to Pashinyan, which were considered profitable by the latter.
In support of that theory, both during the international congress, both before that, Aliyev had complaints about Russia, “disguising” those complaints as insults toward Armenia. Plus, the official representatives of the neighboring country have expressed discontent with the Russian peacekeepers, as they allegedly disallow weapons to be transported through the Lachin corridor, as well as use the Armenian versions of Artsakh place names. To put it mildly, the failures Russia faced in the Ukraine excite Aliyev, and he is likely to create provocations in Artsakh, particularly Lachin corridor, without taking the presence of peacekeepers into account.
In theory Armenia should keep several formats and try to milk each of them. But such a precise game requires a certain intellectual level, professionalism, and also work, the aim of which is not the excitement of fans and Sazandars (like the “Cheers to our “dukhov” prime minister”), and is actually the visible result.
Aram ABRAHAMYAN
