The Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia are one step closer to signing the peace treaty

According to the report of the international group Tasnim news agency, citing the media of the Republic of Azerbaijan, The meeting of the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia will be held on May 10 in Almaty, Kazakhstan. The Azerbaijani side has not yet announced the agenda of this meeting, but the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Armenia told the country’s media that on the agenda are issues related to the confirmation of the commitments of the parties, as well as the reconstruction of regional transport infrastructure and trade routes.

This meeting will be held in the background of the border delimitation process between the two countries. Although separate negotiations have been held between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia with the mediation of the European Union and Russia, the peace agreement has not yet been signed. But since last year, direct negotiations between the two countries have also been conducted. At present, the borders between them are defined in this format.

Alman Nasirov, a member of the committee on international relations and inter-parliamentary relations of the Parliament of the Republic of Azerbaijan, told “Turan” news agency: “Azerbaijan and Armenia are one step away.” The signing of the peace treaty. Because many very complex problems that are waiting to be solved have already started to be solved. The main reason for this is that all this happens without a third party.

This representative emphasizes: Kazakhstan will not act as a mediator in the upcoming meeting, but only as the organizer of this meeting. he does. President Ilham Aliyev expressed the principled position that we do not need a mediator, we prefer the form of bilateral relations. For this reason, no one dares to propose a mediation mission. This is Azerbaijan’s diplomatic victory.

According to Nasirov, the demarcation of the borders of the two countries is based on the Almaty Declaration approved in 1991, so it is logical that in this ministerial meeting held in that country, Let’s reach serious agreements.

He believes about the issues discussed in Almaty: the process of demarcation and demarcation is already underway and only one important issue remains. This issue is related to the restoration of transport connections between the two countries. This seems to be the main focus of the meeting in Almaty. I believe that there are no exceptions for serious progress in this direction in Almaty, as long as Nikol Pashinyan’s position is not influenced by a third party, especially France.

This member of the International Relations Committee of the Republic of Azerbaijan , did not rule out the possibility of signing a peace agreement on the eve of COP29 (UN Climate Conference) which will be held in Baku in November. Two processes are going on between Azerbaijan and Armenia. The first process is about defining boundaries, and there are clear successes here. The second process is under the control of foreign ministers and is related to the text of the peace agreement. Although there is no obvious progress here, direct negotiations are underway.

According to the expert, the main thing is that the negotiations are now being conducted without mediators. Because every intermediary has private interests and tries to dictate those interests. Kazakhstan is not a mediator, declaring itself to be only providing a venue for the meeting. Although we do not need a mediator, we do need space. In the future, the negotiations may progress so much that the next meetings will be held in Baku and Yerevan.

Şahinoglu believes that the main work in Almaty will be on the text of the peace agreement. The debate about borders will continue for some time. It is still difficult to reach a common ground on the Zangzor Corridor (the road through the Sivnik region of Armenia). However, general provisions on the opening of lines of communication can be included in a peace agreement or a framework agreement. The significance of the meeting in Almaty may be exactly that.

According to this political expert, Russia is clearly not interested in direct negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Because it loses its effect. When Russia acts as a mediator, it gets an opportunity to influence both sides. Russia has been saying for some time that there are maps in my archive, let’s delimit based on these maps. But today there is no need for these maps. The fact that both sides effectively refused Russian mediation can be considered a success.

It should be noted that in the early 1990s, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict caused conflict between the Republic of Azerbaijan and Armenia. The Nagorno-Karabakh region of Azerbaijan and 7 surrounding regions were occupied. As a result of the 44-day war in 2020, Baku took control of those 7 districts and part of Karabagh.

In addition, on September 19-20, 2023, Baku launched an anti-terrorist operation. declared “local” in Karabagh. Yerevan evaluated this action as “ethnic cleansing”. Later, the population of Armenians migrated from Karabagh to Armenia. Armenia in Almaty