"Can Bono break the old pattern for resolving issues between Azerbaijan and Armenia?"
Farhad Mammadov comments on US Senior Advisor's visit to Baku

POLITICS  07 March 2023 - 10:22

Farhad Mammadov, political analyst and head of the South Caucasus Research Centre, commented in his Telegram channel on the visit of the US Senior Advisor for Caucasus Negotiations Louis Bono to Baku.

"US State Department Special Representative Louis Bono has been caught up in the maelstrom of events since the beginning of his activities. I assume that after his meeting in Baku, where he was given the conditions for negotiations with Armenia: resumption of the proposal on the checkpoint on the conditional border, withdrawal of the remnants of the Armenian armed forces from Karabakh, exclusion of the Karabakh topic from the text of the peace agreement, a supposed meeting to discuss the final version of the peace agreement.

Time is short.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry promptly rejected the proposal to install a checkpoint on its territory for the second time.

We have traveled this road before... Let's recall the statement of the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia that "the new Lachin road is not legal", and a couple of days later he said that Armenia would withdraw its conscripts!

Baku has done the maximum the US and EU expect: sovereignty over communications is secured through a proposal for a checkpoint, and Baku's dialogue with Karabakh Armenians is visualised.

Pashinyan has a choice: continue to persist or go ahead with the installation of the checkpoint without sacrifice.

The algorithm of the processes over the two and a half years is as follows:

- Baku initiative;

- notification of mediators - negotiations;

- Armenia's refusal;

- local crisis;

- prevention;

- escalation;

- acceptance of a new reality;

- continuation of negotiations on the basis of a new reality.

We have already moved beyond the period of local crisis to the level of prevention.

Bono has the difficult task of persuading Pashinyan to follow this algorithm.

Pashinyan has taken a position of maximum resistance. And after escalations, he turns the blame on the international community (Russia to a greater extent, the EU and the US to a lesser extent), shrugs his shoulders, and says "I did everything I could".

I daresay Bono's mission will fail, and Pashinyan will follow a well-established pattern. What matters to him is the domestic political component, and the security of Armenia itself, which Pashinyan believes he has secured through the support of Iran, France, to some extent the US, 100 Europeans from the EU mission, and arms deliveries from India.

Escalation is inevitable in order to continue negotiations! This is the law of the algorithm!" Farhad Mammadov wrote.

Caliber.Az