Expectations from the New York Meeting...

Today, on September 26, a meeting is expected in New York between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia regarding peace negotiations. The meeting is set to take place with the participation of U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken. The Secretary will bring the ministers together at a hotel in New York as part of the annual session of the UN General Assembly. This will be Blinken's second trilateral meeting with them on U.S. soil within three months. The last time the three diplomats met was during the NATO summit in Washington on July 10 of this year.

While both sides have recently stated that the majority of the provisions of the peace treaty draft, discussed over the years (through negotiations mediated by both the European Union and Russia, as well as directly), have been agreed upon, they also revealed that there are still a few unresolved issues. Azerbaijan demands that Armenia remove the territorial claim against it from its Constitution, while Armenia claims that a referendum on constitutional changes can only be held in 2027 and proposes signing the peace treaty based on the agreed-upon provisions.

Member of the National Assembly, Rasim Musabeyov, told Turan that achieving some success is crucial for the U.S. administration, particularly the State Department. "There's not much time left before the U.S. presidential election on November 5, and they are focusing on three key areas: Ukraine-Russia, the Middle East, and Azerbaijan-Armenia. Fortunately, there is no war between Azerbaijan and Armenia now, so securing peace between these two countries seems like the most attainable goal for the U.S. administration."

According to Musabeyov, the Armenian side is particularly proposing a shortened document, suggesting it be signed as a peace treaty. "Therefore, I wouldn't rule out the possibility that Blinken will try to ensure the document's signing in some form."

In his view, this will not be the end of the negotiations: "The President of Azerbaijan stated that the agreed part should not be signed as a separate peace treaty, but rather be initialed as individual provisions. Initialing means that no further changes will be made to these provisions, but negotiations will continue on the unresolved ones. Now we have to see which compromise option is important for the State Department and Armenia, so they can present this as an achieved agreement rather than just an initialed document. I think there’s about a 50/50 chance that something will ultimately be signed."

Elkhan Shahinoglu, head of the "Atlas" Research Center, told Radio Azadlıq that this was an expected meeting. "Currently, the session of the UN General Assembly is taking place in New York. It seems Blinken wanted to take advantage of this opportunity to organize a meeting between the foreign ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia, who are attending. This is not new; Blinken organized a similar meeting at the last session as well."

However, the expert does not expect any significant outcome from the meeting: "The differences in the positions of the two sides are evident even before the meeting. President Ilham Aliyev's recent speech in parliament also indicates that Armenia is still unwilling to accept Azerbaijan's conditions."

According to the political analyst, by organizing the meeting, the U.S. wants to show that it is active in the South Caucasus and that the region is not Russia's backyard. "Discussions will be held, but a single meeting won't resolve the differences. There is no progress on constitutional changes. Blinken might use this meeting to gauge how close the sides are to reaching a compromise."

He added that if Secretary Blinken wants the agreement to be signed before the U.S. presidential election, he must convince Armenia to remove the territorial claim against Azerbaijan from its Constitution. "Both sides are ready to recognize each other's territorial integrity in the agreement. Most of the distance has been covered. Pashinyan can accelerate a positive resolution by taking just one step."