Baku on Sunday (July 16) accused Moscow of failing to meet its obligations under the Russian-sponsored 2020 ceasefire agreement to end the war between Azerbaijan and Israel. The day after the Yerevan-Baku talks, Armenia demanded control of the Nagorno-Karabakh region.
“The Russian side has not ensured the full implementation of the agreement within its obligations,” Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry said, adding that Moscow “did nothing to prevent Armenia” from supplying military equipment to separatist forces in the enclave.
Nagorno-Karabakh has been the scene of a conflict between Baku and Yerevan for decades. Two wars have erupted between the neighbors, with this mountainous area, mostly inhabited by Armenians but internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, at the heart of the dispute.
Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian met in Brussels on Saturday for new negotiations on a lasting solution to the decades-long conflict under the auspices of European Council President Charles Michel. Russia, in turn, proposes organizing a summit in Moscow to regain control of the peace process.
Closure of the Lachin Corridor
In the fall of 2020, Moscow backed a ceasefire agreement at the end of a six-week war in which Armenian forces were defeated and forced to abandon areas they controlled.
Russia had pledged to use soldiers to ensure free movement between Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh via the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Armenia to the enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh.
It was closed Tuesday by Azerbaijan over “smuggling operations” by the Armenian branch of the Red Cross, which was able to resume medical evacuations from Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday.
On Saturday, the Russian Foreign Ministry asked Azerbaijan to reopen the corridor. Locally, 6,000 people gathered on Friday to make the same request.
Russian diplomacy also said that Armenia’s recent recognition of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan “radically changed the position of the Russian peacekeeping contingent stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh”.
As part of the negotiations in late May, Yerevan agreed to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, subject to compliance with several mechanisms such as protecting the rights and security of the region’s Armenian residents.
involvement of westerners in the region
According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, talks between Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinian in Brussels on Saturday focused in particular on “the worsening of the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh” and that the two parties “had agreed to intensify the work to solve it”. the existing problems”.
“Once again, our discussions have been frank, honest and substantive,” Charles Michel said in a brief statement after the meeting. He encouraged the two leaders to “take bold steps to ensure decisive and irreversible progress towards normalization”.
Charles Michel announced his intention to organize a new meeting with the two leaders in Brussels after the summer, as well as five-way talks with the French and German leaders in Spain in early October, on the sidelines of the next summit the Political Community of Europe .
Western countries, particularly the EU, are becoming more involved in the region, while the traditional policeman of the Caucasus, Russia, mired in its invasion of Ukraine, appears to be losing its ability to act.
Russia ready to ‘organize a trilateral meeting’
To regain control of this process, the Kremlin on Saturday offered to host a meeting at foreign ministerial level, while proposing that the future peace treaty could be signed in Moscow.
Russia is ready “to hold a trilateral meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow in the near future,” the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement.
Moscow also offers to “host a summit between Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia to sign the relevant (peace) treaty” in due course.
For the time being, however, tensions have increased. Azerbaijan’s Defense Ministry claimed on Saturday that Armenian separatists caused “radio interference against GPS navigation systems of local and foreign airlines” flying in Azerbaijan.
The Armenian separatist authorities dismissed the allegations as “absolute lies”.
With AFP