No mention of Karabakh! This is an internal matter of Azerbaijan Exclusive details of Sochi summit

A trilateral meeting of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia, respectively, Ilham Aliyev, Vladimir Putin and Nikol Pashinyan was held in Sochi on October 31, at the initiative of Russia. Earlier, Putin held separate meetings with Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan.

The Azerbaijani president clearly outlined the position of Baku during a bilateral meeting with Putin.

“Azerbaijan has recently put forward five basic principles on which relations with Armenia should be normalized. These are the fundamental principles of international law, and I think that normalization can be achieved on this basis.

The Karabakh conflict is already history, it was resolved two years ago, so there is practically nothing to discuss in this context. And the normalization of Azerbaijani-Armenian relations is the format that requires, of course, very serious steps,” Aliyev said.

Meanwhile, as Caliber.Az reported the day before, Pashinyan said at the congress of the Civil Contract party held several days earlier that the Russian proposals to normalize Armenian-Azerbaijani relations consist of 15 points. And if 14 of them, in general, do not cause any particular complaints from Baku, then the 15th point is absolutely unacceptable for the Azerbaijani side, since it refers to the possibility of discussing the notorious topic of "status" in the future. Through diplomatic channels, Baku conveyed to the Russian side the absolute unacceptability and impossibility of discussing this item. “We do not and will not review it. This is a principled position, and it was very clearly conveyed to the Russian side,” reliable sources told us.

As you can see, Aliyev clearly expressed the position of Azerbaijan at a bilateral meeting with Putin, including this “status” issue. Declaring that “the Karabakh conflict is already history, it was resolved two years ago, so there is practically nothing to discuss in this context,” Aliyev made it clear that he does not intend to return to the issue of “status”, which has been settled.

Caliber.Az became aware of some details of the Sochi talks at the highest level. Thus, according to our information, the Armenian side wanted to reflect the events that took place in May 2021 and September 2022 in the final statement, but it failed to do so. Moreover, Pashinyan and his team wanted a clause on the status quo as of May 21, 2021, to be included in the document. However, they didn't succeed either. After the Armenian side realized that it was unable to introduce its points into the document, it tried to block the adoption of the joint statement, but the Armenian trick did not work. Moreover, it would be a clear disrespect to the host country - to Russia and personally to Putin.

Thus, there is not a single mention of "status" in the final statement, as this is an internal matter of Azerbaijan. Particular attention was paid to the issue of sovereignty and territorial integrity in the joint statement, which completely suited the Azerbaijani side.