According to the political scientist, the USA is very serious and wants to achieve serious success in signing the peace agreement.
“I think there will be a new round of negotiations shortly, in the format of the negotiations between the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan,” political scientist Armen Vardanyan told Aravot. Reminder: the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations are postponed at the request of Baku, and at this moment, the dates of the new meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are being specified.
According to Armen Vardanyan, “It is not necessary to make a big tragedy out of this or draw far-reaching consequences.”
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To our question, who does this benefit? Doesn’t this mean that the Azerbaijani side still needs to decide its positions? The political scientist answered: “By the way, they are still undecided about what they want regarding the enclaves and don’t have clarity about the maps either. Regarding tactics, they still have problems regarding orientation, which way, and maps they should go to negotiations.”
To our reminder, Armen Grigoryan, the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia, expressed his opinion that if the intensity of negotiations is maintained, the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan can be signed before the end of the year.
Armen Vardanyan responded as follows. “I do not believe there will be a peace agreement because the problems are very profound, and several issues have serious contradictions. In my opinion, that peace treaty will not be signed.”
Armen Vardanyan answered the question: what are the negotiations aimed at in that case? “The parties are trying to go to negotiations, but the Azerbaijani side is speaking from a conservative position and does not leave the Armenian side with the option of signing a peace treaty. They insist that there should be no armed forces in Artsakh, and the Armenian side cannot do that because it could lead to ethnic cleansing and genocide. “Azerbaijan puts the issue sharply that there should not be an Artsakh Defense Ministry, that it is their internal business, etc.”
We wondered if, against this background, the situation with the blockade of the Lachin Corridor does not become more dangerous, especially since the issue seems to have been forgotten and the international organizations have stopped talking about the blockade of Artsakh Armenians.
Armen Vardanyan said: “I agree, as a matter of fact, at least as of now, that issue has been closed; Azerbaijan has taken a position and is not going to make concessions. The international community does not put this issue before Azerbaijan because it says it is its territory. I will do whatever I want there and put a checkpoint there. Unfortunately, it seems that Aliyev has managed to digest it at this moment, and there is no serious opposition from either RA or the international community. There is no condition on the part of RA to force the dismantling of that checkpoint, the international community is also obsessed with Ukraine, and this issue does not concern them. Maybe they also think Azerbaijan’s right to set up a checkpoint on its territory.”
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
“Aravot” daily, 14.06.2023
