Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev instructed their foreign ministries to start preparations for peace talks. They came to this decision after a tripartite meeting with Charles Michel, President of the European Council, in Brussels.
The sides decided to establish a bilateral commission that will deal with the demarcation of the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the issues of ensuring security and stability around the border.
In his speech in Brussels after the meeting, the President of the European Council said that the parties have made significant progress. “The stability and well-being of Transcaucasia is very important to the EU, so we are involved in supporting all positive efforts, creating confidence-building measures. We made significant progress today. “We agreed to start a negotiation process to prepare a possible peace deal,” he said.
He expressed hope that progress will be made in the coming weeks.
What will the peace agreement be about?
Deputy of the Milli Majlis (Azerbaijan parliament), Aydın Mirzazadeh, said that only two things will be discussed as part of the signing of the peace agreement – the recognition of territorial integrity and borders between states, as well as the establishment of good neighborly relations. Gazeta.ru.
“The issue of the status of Karabakh is no longer before Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan accepts the people living in these lands as its citizens and ensures that their civil rights are respected. “There will be no Karabakh in the peace agreement,” he said.
According to Mirzazade, if the talks return to the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, no concessions are foreseen from Baku.
“The issue of the status of Azerbaijani citizens of Armenian nationality is not on the agenda. “We demand from Armenia only that the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan be respected,” he said.
As Vadim Mukhanov, head of the Caucasus sector of IMEMO RAS, noted, this is not only a sharp disagreement over Nagorno-Karabakh, but also about a specific conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
“There is also a communication problem. There is always a Turkish factor in Armenia-Azerbaijan relations. For Armenia, the Turkish theme is painful, it is intertwined, including the genocide theme. “Resolving disputes between countries involves many controversial issues,” he said.
According to him, the Karabakh issue will be about some temporary agreements.
“Obviously, the Armenian community will not understand Pashinyan’s fulfillment of all the demands of the Azerbaijani side.
The reaction of the Armenians to the new defeat of Yerevan on the diplomatic path, similar to the reaction after the end of the Karabakh conflict in 2020, can be repeated. Pashinyan and his team pay attention to this.”
As Vadim Mukhanov reminds, the issue is not just about the status of Karabakh, but about the Armenian population living within the framework of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, which has been unrecognized for decades.
“It is clear that the number of this population is declining. It’s not 150,000 anymore, but even if it’s 80,000, it’s a significant number. Therefore, they are of course interested in ensuring the safety of the population living there,” he said.
Can Armenia and Azerbaijan sign a peace treaty?
Experts interviewed by socialbites.ca agree that a complete peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan is unlikely in the short term. As Alexander Iskandaryan, director of the Caucasus Institute in Yerevan, has stated, Armenia and Azerbaijan have completely different views on what the world should be like.
“This process is definitely not going to be easy.
In principle, it is in the interests of both countries to talk about the parameters of how relations will be established. But I don’t think they’ll be able to agree in the near future: there are too many pitfalls. In principle, this process may one day go in this direction, but today there is a lot of inconsistency,” he said.
“Azerbaijan sincerely wants to establish peaceful relations with neighboring Armenia, and today offers to recognize its territorial integrity and state borders, which are recorded on the maps of the former USSR,” said Azerbaijani Deputy Aydın Mirzazade.