It had been previously reported that on October 8, Putin would hold separate meetings with Aliyev and Pashinyan. The Kremlin announced that the main topic of these meetings would be the peace process between Yerevan and Baku.
The reason for the failure of the trilateral meeting is already known. During his visit to Baku on August 19, Putin stated that Russia “is ready to assist in negotiations on both the peace agreement and the issues of border delimitation and demarcation between Armenia and Azerbaijan.” Later, the Russian president called the Armenian prime minister to inform him of the negotiations held in Baku, and it was expected that he would propose continuing the process with Moscow’s involvement. However, a few days later, Pashinyan announced at a press conference in Yerevan that in his conversation with Putin, he expressed readiness to meet with the Azerbaijani president in a bilateral format, even at the border between the two countries. In other words, Pashinyan rejected Putin’s offer to meet with Aliyev during the informal CIS summit in Moscow.
It is worth noting that this time, for the first time in two years, Armenia participated in the CIS summit in full. As is known, Yerevan had suspended its participation in the CSTO and had reduced its activity in the CIS in recent years, participating in meetings at the level of deputy ministers. However, now Pashinyan traveled to Moscow together with Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan.
According to observers, the Armenian prime minister is trying to ease tensions in relations with Russia and is now using more cautious rhetoric regarding Moscow. However, as it appears, he is not interested in returning the negotiation process with Azerbaijan under the Kremlin’s control. Pashinyan openly expresses his desire to continue negotiations on Western platforms, but in recent months, the roles of Brussels and Washington have either been halted or minimized.
Yuri Ushakov, the Russian president’s international affairs advisor, told reporters the day before about “Western attempts to enter the South Caucasus” through the process of preparing a peace agreement between Azerbaijan and Armenia. According to him, “the draft peace agreement was prepared in Moscow, and all the groundwork was carried out by Russia,” but now “the West is trying to take control of the process.” Ushakov stated that “not all sides of the negotiations welcome the role of the West.” “To put it mildly, not all participants in even bilateral talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan approve of the West’s role and these attempts to interfere in the negotiation process,” noted the Kremlin representative. He also added that the activities of the EU observation mission, present in Armenia, “are not welcomed.”
As a result, the negotiation process has reached a deadlock: Yerevan persistently refuses the Moscow platform, while Baku is not satisfied with the West’s role in this process. In Baku, it is understood that Armenia is interested in prolonging the negotiations with Western involvement either to buy time or to conclude an “incomplete peace.”
It is known that currently, Armenia, with the support of the United States and through the assistance of France and other Western countries, continues to arm itself, trying to restore the military balance with Azerbaijan. It is also clear that this tactic by Yerevan increases the risk of a new war daily. After all, both in Baku and Moscow, this policy of Armenia is seen as a direct threat to their interests in the region.
Farhad Mammadov
Translated from haqqin.az
