What was agreed in Brussels?

Baku/23.05.22/Turan: President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, President of the European Council Charles Michel and Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nicole Pashinyan met on May 22 in Brussels. After the meeting, the President of the European Council, Charles Michel, made a statement to the press.

“Today, I again received Azerbaijani President Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan. It was our third discussion in this format. We focused on the situation in the South Caucasus and the development of EU relations with both countries, as well as with the region as a whole. The discussion was frank and productive. We have considered the whole range of issues. We discussed humanitarian issues in detail, including demining, efforts to free detainees and resolve the fate of the missing,” Michel said.

What agreements were reached at the meeting?

Political commentator Ahmed Alili answers these and other questions in the "A Difficult Question" program.

According to him, the result of this meeting was that the EU no longer intends to concede to Russia. “Russia is trying to conduct the negotiation process on Karabakh on its platform and single-handedly dominate mediation, as it was before. Russia does not want to involve an alternative mediator in this process,” Alili said. He recalled Russia’s actions are aimed at ousting Turkey from the negotiation process and keeping it in its monopoly.

“Russia tried to do the same with the EU, but it didn't work out. This time everything went differently. Charles Michel developed a vigorous activity and managed to act as an alternative in this process,” the political scientist said, adding that the activation of the United States also plays an important role in this issue, demonstrating that it is ready to act together with the EU. And the result is obvious, with the mediation of the EU, on its initiative, the third meeting is already taking place, which speaks for itself,” Alili said.

According to the expert, the statement released by Charles Michel specifically indicates the achievements of this meeting: “An agreement was reached to continue discussing a peace treaty, resolving border issues, communications issues (in particular, the principles governing transit between western Azerbaijan and Nakhchivan, as well as international transportation through the communication infrastructure of both countries were agreed), as well as intensifying the work of the Economic Advisory Group to promote economic development for the benefit of both countries and their population,” he said.

Alili also drew attention to the fact that the Azerbaijani side is more inclined to continue the peace process with the mediation of the EU than Moscow.

“This is confirmed at least by the fact that the meeting in Brussels was held at the level of the leaders of the two countries, while the meeting held shortly before that in Dushanbe was held at the level of foreign ministers. At the same time, the parties limited themselves only to an exchange of views on the normalization of relations,” Ahmed Alili believes.—0—