ArmInfo. "I think the announced meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders, Nikol Pashinyan and Ilham Aliyev, in Brussels scheduled for December 15 is, in fact, an invitation of the conflicting parties to a talk.
I do not think that the European Union`s active mediation in the problems involving Armenia and Azerbaijan, similar to that of Russia, is not on the agenda," Sergey Markedonov, leading researcher at the Center of Euro-Atlantic Security, Institute of International Studies, Moscow Institute of International Relations, said in an interview with ArmInfo.
Today Armenia`s Premier Nikol Pashinyan is to take part in a trilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, in Sochi, Russia. On December 15, at the invitation of President of the European Council Charles Michel, a Pashinyan-Aliyev meeting is to take place on the sidelines of the Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels.
"The Pashinyan-Aliyev talks mediated by Vladimir Putin were to have taken place in Moscow early this month. And the fact that the Armenian premier and the Azerbaijani president will discuss the settlement prospects in Brussels, rather than in Moscow, is by no means the evidence of the EU`s attempts to seize the initiative from the Kremlin, to say nothing of its announcing a new format of negotiations on Nagorno- Karabakh. First of all, it is due to the fact that both the leaders intended to take part in the Eastern Partnership summit in Brussels," Markedonov said.
The expert pointed out a greater seriousness of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. In this context, Markedonov stressed the EU is not playing a great role in the peace process. According to him, Brussels has no potential to put an end to armed border incidents between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The same could be said about the EU`s potential for dealing with such issues as POWs` repatriation and a peacekeeping operation Karabakh.
"Finally, last, but not least, the EU has no plan of unblocking communications in the conflict zone that would be different from that of Russia, as the first step toward a final settlement. They are not proposing anything new in principle. In this context, I do not see any disagreement with Russia-proposed settlement plan on the part of Brussels," Markedonov said.