Point, Point, Comma ...

The presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan used the site of the Valdai Club to discuss issues of mutual interest, covering the spheres of the economy, security and the future settlement of the Karabakh conflict, which is important for Azerbaijan.

Conditionally, the Valdai visit of President Ilham Aliyev can be divided into two parts: a bilateral al meeting Putin-Aliyev and his speech to the participants of the 16th Annual meeting of the Valdai International Discussion Club, which took place from September 30 to October 3 in Sochi with the grandiose theme "Dawn of the East and world political system. "

In the first case, we see a format where the question is about satisfying the traditional interests of Moscow in increasing trade turnover with the traditional balance of preference for Russia. Ilham Aliyev informed that bilateral trade compared with August 2018 compared to August 2018 increased by 20%. He publicly assured that the positive trend would continue to grow at least until the end of the year. Both sides noted a turnover of $ 2.55 billion in 2018, which showed an increase of 19.1% compared to 2017. However, this is not the $ 4 billion reached in the pre-crisis year of 2014. Despite the constant assurances of the parties, it was not possible to reach this height year after year.

Particular attention was paid to military-technical cooperation, which, as noted by the parties, will develop. According to the signed agreements for $ 5 billion, Russia supplied Azerbaijan with weapons for $ 3 billion. Most likely Moscow wished that the rest of the agreement would be implemented in the near future.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, without detailed specification, also said that Aliyev had submitted proposals to increase trade. "I mean the plans, authored by the President of Azerbaijan. For our part, we are doing everything in our power to implement these specific large projects," Putin said, noting that a bilateral intergovernmental commission is also working on this.

Aliyev, in turn, in a speech to the participants, the form specified that Azerbaijan intend to increase investment in Russia in order to correct the imbalance. According to him, the volume of Russian investments amounted to $ 4.6 billion, and Azerbaijan - $ 1.2 billion.

We can expect an increase in trade with a surplus for Russia, purchases of products of the Russian military-industrial complex, as well as investment in the Russian economy. This curtsy of Baku cannot but be appreciated in Moscow and may become a starting point for supporting the policy of Azerbaijan in the Caucasus region, where the Karabakh conflict plays a central role.

As a speaker at the forum, Aliyev, after a long silence against the militant statements of the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan "Karabakh is Armenia- that"s all!", started attack relying on four resolutions of the UN Security Council, but not the OSCE Minsk Group, which for 27 years remains the main negotiating platform.

It can be understood, since the resolutions clearly support the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan and provide for the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the occupied territories, while the format of the Minsk Group diplomatically builds a strategy, so far unsuccessful, on reaching a compromise without a clear position.

Touching on the Karabakh issue, Aliyev made it clear that the latest statements by Pashinyan are not acceptable and can have much more serious consequences. In this sense, he recalled the April fighting in 2016, when the reason for the successful offensive of the Azerbaijani army was the previous aggravation of the situation on the line of fire from Armenia, which led to the deaths of six Azerbaijani civilians. Now relying on the same cause-and-effect relationship, Aliyev indicated that today Azerbaijan is suffering losses even outside the conflict zone - on the border with Armenia.

It is difficult to say whether Aliyev will attempt to repeat the 2016 blitzkrieg, relying on UN Security Council resolutions, and large-scale Russian military supplies. The next steps of Yerevan, which so far provokes Baku to aggravation, can be an answer to this question.