Tuesday, May 24 2022 14:05

ArmInfo.The main result of the meeting in Brussels was that meeting itself. And the problem is not at all in the venue, but in the complexity of the  Armenian-Azerbaijani contradictions. Nevertheless, despite the  absence of any expectations of a breakthrough, another meeting has  demonstrated that the settlement process is still underway. Director  of the Caucasus Institute Alexander Iskandaryan expressed a similar  opinion to ArmInfo.

Following the third meeting in Brussels on May 22 in the  Michel-Pashinyan-Aliyev format, an agreement was reached on further  work aimed at opening regional communications, starting the work of a  commission on border delimitation and security. An agreement was also  reached on the next meeting in July-August of this year.

"Against the background of the actual freeze of the Minsk process,  Yerevan and Baku are trying to use Brussels as a new platform for  negotiations. Moscow, Washington and Paris, in turn, are not very  eager to completely destroy the format of the OSCE Minsk Group  co-chairmanship. The format does not work primarily because Baku does  not want to talk within its framework. The Russian format of  negotiations is also progressing with great difficulty, and this is  where the need for Brussels arises. At the same time, it is quite  difficult for me to imagine the solution of the whole complex of  problems between Armenia and Azerbaijan in the EU platform in the  foreseeable future, which have not been solved during the last 30  years," he said.

According to the political scientist, Aliyev is trying to extract a  document from this whole process, which he can present in Baku as  recognition by Armenia of the "territorial integrity of Azerbaijan",  along with the territory of Artsakh. Which, for obvious reasons, puts  a lot of additional problems in addition to all existing problems in  the way of signing such a document by Yerevan. Baku's refusal to  consider the status and rights of Artsakh Armenians in a different  perspective than in terms of the rights of Azerbaijani citizens of  various ethnic affiliations only exacerbates the problem. According  to Iskandaryan, in reality, Azerbaijan does not need the Armenians of  Artsakh at all, it needs only Artsakh itself as a territory. While  the positions of Yerevan and Stepanakert are primarily aimed at  protecting the rights of the Artsakh people.  "So there are still  differences of positions. And I don't think that they can be brought  together in Brussels or anywhere else, or by reaching a consensus  decision, at least in the medium term. Another difficult problem is  the delimitation and demarcation of borders on in the South Caucasus,  where there are no such borders at all, and there are only the  borders of the former USSR, and if in the case of normal relations  between the countries this process takes decades, then at least it is  difficult to predict how long it will take for Armenia and  Azerbaijan. So, there will be no quick decisions in this case either.  But this does not mean at all that there is no need to at least start  talking about this topic," Iskandaryan summed up.