TIE FOR AZERBAIJAN

Apparently, the focus of the post-war settlement between Azerbaijan and Armenia has shifted to diplomacy. Regular armed provocations at the conditional border line between Azerbaijan and Armenia, as well as the attacks of Armenian illegal armed groups in the zone of Garabagh controlled by Russian peacekeepers have failed to escalate the situation and provoke a new war.

The current stage of talks is fundamentally different from the OSCE Minsk Group meetings before the 44-day war. Not only because Azerbaijan decided to liberate its territories in 2020. Important is the pace of the negotiations: On May 26 in Moscow, on June 1 in Chisinau. It has already been announced that they will continue on July 21 at the EU summit in Brussels. And these are not simply meetings for the sake of meetings, but real negotiations on the five principles of the future peace treaty proposed by Azerbaijan.

The Chisinau round. What's behind the scenes?

Since the end of the 44-day war, the talks between the Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian have never been followed by so categorical and mutually exclusive forecasts. Some predicted that the Moldovan capital will see the signing of the final version of a peace treaty or at least some kind of truce between the conflicting parties. Others were sceptical about the possibility of any negotiation process at all.

Nevertheless, the dialogue did take place. According to Hikmet Hajiyev, Head of Foreign Policy Affairs Department of the Presidential Administration, "meeting in the margins of EPC facilitated by President Charles Michel in trilateral format with engagement of Germany and France took place in informal, positive and fruitful atmosphere. Agreed to hold the next round at 3-l format in Brussels in July."

Charles Michel revealed some more details delivering a concluding statement as usual: "We had an opportunity to touch upon all the topics we discussed in Brussels in May: communication, security and rights, border delimitation, peace treaty. This meeting was a good preparation for the next one, which will be held in Brussels on July 21. We, the EU, will do everything to help, to assist, to make more progress in the normalisation of relations."

The outcome of the Chisinau talks can be assessed in different ways. Some will regard it as a military draw, while others as an important stage on the difficult road to peace. But to provide a true assessment, we need to go back a little—to the EAEU summit in Moscow.

What did Pashinian let slip?

It is not only and not so much the summit itself that we should remember. And not even the trilateral meeting, which lasted only 20 minutes and ended without the signing of any joint statement. Pashinian's attempt to engage in a quarrel with the President of Azerbaijan was much more informative.

We can only guess what made the Armenian Prime Minister lose his temper—the mentioning of the Zangezur corridor, or Ilham Aliyev listing the airports constructed in the areas liberated from Armenian occupation. But Pashinian violated the regulations and related, for whatever reason, the Zangezur corridor with the alleged territorial claims of Azerbaijan towards Armenia. He immediately received a harsh rebuke from President Aliyev: "One must try very hard to see territorial claims in my words. As for the term 'corridor', I used it in the same way in relation to the North-South and the East-West corridors. 'Corridor' shall in no way be interpreted as an encroachment on one's territory. It is an international term, and I think that people familiar with international terminology would probably not attach that meaning to it, which the Armenian Prime Minister attaches today". This was followed by a few more responses. Finally, it was President Vladimir Putin, who stopped the discussion also to think about the forthcoming trilateral meeting.

Apart from Pashinian's incompetence and his attempts to derive false meanings from what his Azerbaijani vis-a-vis said, there is another important aspect to this discussion. Thus, Pashinian inadvertently let some words slip. Apparently, Armenia had a serious intention to provoke international pressure on Baku to make it remove the border checkpoint in the Lachin district through promoting the usual ranting of "ethnic cleansing", "genocide", "blockade" and so on.

Even Pashinian's pledge to recognise Azerbaijan's territorial integrity turned out to have a double meaning. Obviously, the Armenian prime minister is trying to turn this into a bargaining chip. In return, Yerevan expects to receive nothing less than "international mechanisms" and an "international mission" in Garabagh after the withdrawal of the Russian Peacekeeping Confingent (RPC).

But it failed. It is difficult to say whether Armenia has managed to secure some kind of preliminary agreement with any of the external players. Either way, a dispatch of an EU observation mission to Armenia should mean something. Nevertheless, the course of life shows that Armenia should talk not with France or the EU, but with Azerbaijan, which has clearly and unambiguously drawn its red lines.

Lachin: last chance?

On May 28, the Independence Day, President Ilham Aliyev visited the Lachin district to attend the opening ceremony of two power substations, lay the foundation of a new apartment block, inspect the progress of works on the site of a future agro-industrial park as well as the Lachin tourist infrastructure facilities.

The landmark event was the return and accommodation of the first 20 families of former internally displaced people to Lachin. The city is coming back to life after it was freed from Armenian occupation.

It was during this ceremony that President Aliyev sent an unequivocal message to the Garabagh separatists: "I say to them once again from here, from Lachin, which they have exploited for many years and where they have settled illegally: your game is over. No more Miatsum, no more separatism! Ever! Your dreams of independence are a thing of the past, same as the status [of Garabagh]. We sent the status to the right place even during the Second Garabagh War… Everyone knows very well that today we can conduct any operation in the region [Garabagh, R+]. Therefore, the so-called parliament must be dissolved, the dude calling himself president must surrender, all ministers, deputies and others must leave their positions. Only in this case can there be an indulgence for them. Only then can we talk of amnesty."

The reaction of Yerevan and the separatist leadership to Azerbaijani president's statement was expected. Armenia again cried out about mythical ethnic cleansing and genocide. But they were totally unprepared to hear a very positive reaction from Washington instead of a swarm of criticism against Azerbaijan. After all, President Aliyev offered amnesty! Yerevan and Khankendi now blame the US. But this did not change the situation much, as we can see from the outcome of the Chisinau talks, which followed the Azerbaijani agenda, again.