What was agreed at the Brussels meeting?

Baku/07.04.22/Turan: The day before, President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and President of the European Council Charles Michel had a meeting in Brussels. Following the trilateral meeting, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, issued a statement.

He stressed the importance of humanitarian gestures on both sides for building confidence and peaceful coexistence. He also noted the need for a full and speedy resolution of all outstanding humanitarian issues, including the release of the remaining detainees and a comprehensive solution to the problem of the missing, and stated that the EU is ready to support these efforts.

The parties agreed to instruct the foreign ministers to start preparing a future peace treaty in which all the necessary questions would be settled. The delimitation and demarcation of the border will be of great importance and to this end, it has been decided to establish a Joint Border Commission by the end of April.

Elhan Shahinoglu, a political observer, commented on in the Difficult Question program the agreements reached at the  meeting.

According to him, the meeting was fruitful, but there is no certainty that Armenia will fulfill the agreements adopted as a result of it.

“A little less than 4 months have passed since the first meeting of Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels, which took place on December 14 last year and also with the participation of Charles Michel, where good wishes were voiced in the same way, but Armenia has not yet fulfilled any one of the agreements reached,” the political scientist said.

However, he believes that EU mediation is extremely important in terms of the need to remove Russia from participation in the negotiations, which has monopolized this process for many years.

“Negotiations were held mainly in Moscow, Sochi, other places in Russia. It was necessary to get rid of this monopoly, because the mediation of Russia creates certain problems for Azerbaijan. These are Russia's provocations in Karabakh, its anti-Azerbaijani statements by deputies of the State Duma of Russia. All this directly indicates that its mediation does not bode well for Azerbaijan,” Shahinoglu said.

According to him, the activation of Brussels is extremely important. Since, unlike Russia, the EU does not consider the South Caucasus its "home garden", it does not exert political and economic pressure on the countries of the region. The EU wants peace, development of cooperation in this region, and this is in the interests of all the countries of the South Caucasus.

The political scientist noted that Charles Michel, answering the question of journalists, - "Has the process started?", - said, - "It started this night."

“This is a very important message. It means that the EU, not wanting to lag behind Russia, is joining the game, becoming its participant. The EU has rolled up its sleeves to achieve peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia. After all, it was no coincidence that an agreement was reached on the establishment of a Joint Border Commission,” he stressed.

In her opinion, there is one more factor that favorably distinguishes the EU from Russia - the fact that the EU has a special representative for the South Caucasus. "All agreements reached with the participation of Charles Michel will be kept under control by the special representative," Shahinoglu said.