For the first time, a meeting on the normalization of relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia was held in a five-party format, also including German Chancellor Olaf Scholz. It was the German chancellor who immediately after the meeting announced the meeting of the leaders in Brussels on June 21. Meanwhile, French President Emmanuel Macron repeated the mistake he had made after the Prague meeting. Farid Shafiyev, Chairman of the Board of the Center of Analysis of International Relations, commented on the results of the meeting in Chisinau in his interview with Minval.az.
This was the first time a meeting was organized in this format. What do you think about the results of the talks? What have the parties come to?
In general, I would like to say that the negotiations that are going on between Armenia and Azerbaijan have nothing to do with this format. And I believe this format is unlikely to play any role in the relations between the two countries and in the entire negotiation process, given that France played a negative role in the trilateral Azerbaijan-Armenia-EU format after the Prague summit. The Europeans came up with this format to somehow involve Germany in the process. However, I am not sure there will be another meeting in this format, given the reaction of our Foreign Ministry to Macron’s statement.
I want to make it clear that our peace process between Armenia and Azerbaijan with the mediation of Charles Michel has nothing to do with yesterday’s format. We have to understand that after the second Karabakh war Germany also openly took the side of Armenia and therefore neither France nor Germany can be considered mediators.
Could we say that the main result of yesterday’s meeting was the announcement of the meeting in Brussels on June 21 by Olaf Scholz?
Yes, we could say that. Now another meeting has been announced in Washington on June 12 at the level of foreign ministers of the two countries. We have to understand that the process is under way, that there is a need for additional meetings, and that documents are being drafted. Yes, there has been some serious progress, but there are also serious problems. In particular, Armenia’s desire to institutionalize the process of dialogue between the central authorities in Baku and the Karabakh Armenians. We will never go for that. The dialogue will be within the framework of the Constitution of Azerbaijan. We can involve international experts in the field of reconciliation, reintegration.
For example, Hikmet Hajiyev recently spoke about Slovakia’s experience with the Hungarian minority. International experts from Slovakia and other countries with similar experience can be involved here, but Azerbaijan will not agree to institutionalize this process, that is, to establish something like the OSCE Minsk Group, under no circumstances. These attempts by Armenia are delaying the process of signing the treaty. The main problem and disagreement revolve around this very topic. There is a certain consensus on all other issues. Even on the borders, delimitation, the 1975 map… The main thing is to include in the treaty the recognition of our territorial integrity (86,600 square kilometers), which includes both Karabakh and the enclaves, and then the resolution of this issue is a matter of delimitation.
Now they are talking about the map of 1975, one of the most recent ones, perhaps it will be taken as a basis. But that is not to say that everything will strictly follow this map. Again, this is quite a long process.
What can you say about Nikol Pashinyan’s statement about the exchange of enclaves? Do they have the right to talk about Armenian enclaves?
The Armenians can talk about anything they want. This process will be addressed as part of delimitation and demarcation. If we recognize the 1991 borders, we also have an enclave in our territory, Bashkand. This process, too, has to be dealt with. Perhaps through an exchange. But they have one enclave, and we have eight. This will be a technical process.
As you can see, most of the talks are taking place in Western formats, and in general the EU and the United States have become more active to resolve this issue. Could we say the negotiation process is being fully moderated by the West and Russia is losing this race?
We rejected Russia’s peace treaty project, which proposed postponing the Karabakh issue indefinitely. This does not suit us, so we have had much more success on the Western platform. We have already reached the point where Armenia recognizes Karabakh as Azerbaijan’s territory, and this is a great success. Russia cannot be fully excluded from the process, because it still has interests in the issue of opening transport communications. There are advances on the Russian platform, and there are discussions on the opening of the Zangezur corridor through the mediation of Russian Deputy Prime Minister Overchuk. Therefore, we will continue on the Western platform on the normalization of bilateral relations, and on the Russian platform on transport communications.
