What to expect from new round of Armenia-Azerbaijan peace talks? Brussels meeting is around the corner

The next round of talks between the heads of Azerbaijan and Armenia in Brussels will be held in the coming days, President Ilham Aliyev said during a telephone conversation with US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken. On the eve of this event, Baku is calm and collected, while there's a lot of excitement in Yerevan.

Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan, for example, gave an interview to the Armenian service of the Voice of America, in which he actually voiced the Armenian position on the upcoming round.

There is nothing new in his theses: "the need to create international mechanisms" in the dialogue between Baku and Khankendi to ensure the rights and security of Karabakh Armenians (and Grigoryan himself called this dialogue "negotiations", artificially giving a certain status to an illegal entity) and "reminding" that "the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict" has never been territorial and "the concept around which negotiations have been going on for a long time, i.e. the security and rights of Armenians living in Karabakh, does not concern territories, but people, their rights and security".

This cliche, by which the Armenians and their handlers attempt to shift the negotiating logic away from the only possible course of international law, is shattered by a number of arguments.

Firstly, the preamble to the Armenian Constitution, referring to the Declaration of Independence, actually affirms Karabakh as part of its state and thus confirms the occupation of Karabakh for more than twenty years.

Second, Yerevan's longstanding funding of the self-proclaimed entity also confirms the occupation.

Thirdly, the expulsion of several hundred thousand Azerbaijanis from the territories where the illegal entity was established, i.e. a gross violation of their rights and security, not only confirms the fact of occupation but also deprives Armenians of the moral right to raise the issue of their own security at all.

Fourthly, did not the Armenian Prime Minister declare not so long ago that Karabakh is Armenia, and that is it?

Of course, the mediators are well aware of all this, and if even in the "best of times" they were unable to help Yerevan legitimise the annexation of Azerbaijani territories, then now, when Baku holds a volume of international law in one hand and a rifle in the other, the quasi-intellectual efforts of Armenian politicians seem anachronistic.

In a somewhat exaggerated form, the same discourse is continued by the former RA Minister of Foreign Affairs Vardan Oskanian, demonstrating with his whole appearance that for the sake of Armenia, he has no problem begging Pashinyan to appoint him as a negotiator.

It should be noted that this is the second time in a few days that he has been seen making this plea. "Give me three months, and I will overturn the logic of the negotiation process," the ex-Foreign Minister speaks in this somewhat Archimedean spirit.

There is little point in going into the details of the tools with the help of which Oskanian proposes to make a tectonic shift in the negotiation process. When reading his theses, one realises that his author is terribly far from reality. Much more so, by the way, than the Pashinyan and his team he criticises.

Meanwhile, Washington, even though it is the capital of great power, is also experiencing some kind of excitement. It is important for the White House to bring the parties to peace before autumn, otherwise, they risk losing control over the negotiation process afterwards, deepening into their election race.

Secretary Blinken had a telephone conversation with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev in which he expressed continued US support for the negotiations on an Armenia-Azerbaijan peace agreement and noted the importance of "a creative and compromise-based approach to the negotiation process".

We have no doubt about the constructive nature of the American mediation, but it is somewhat surprising that the White House administration has not yet appreciated the full mastery of Baku's policy of combining diplomatic methods with political and forceful ones.

The installation of the Lachin checkpoint has become an example of such a policy. Is there a more constructive approach? As for concessions, it is strange to talk about them in conditions when Baku merely demands the restoration of justice.

The fact that Washington not only does not announce but does not even comment on the upcoming meeting in Brussels, speaking only about the next meeting of foreign ministers (in Washington!), as if skipping the Brussels meeting, although the first May round in Arlington was positioned by the White House as a part of a large negotiation process, including the European platform.

At any rate, in a briefing on July 12, US State Department spokesman Matthew Miller said the following: "There are no meetings scheduled at this time, but we look forward to the next meeting between the Armenian and Azerbaijani ministers. When we say that peace is within reach, it means that they have made significant progress on a number of issues." There is a distancing from the European track.

Most likely, the reason is that seeing Yerevan's hopeless and fatal stubbornness and not foreseeing successful prospects for the summit in Brussels, Washington is trying to disassociate itself from it. Macron may have had a hand in this, pondering what kind of trick to play in Brussels. If our assumptions are correct, Washington will not give the Europeans the prerogative to host the signing ceremony of the peace treaty when it is agreed upon. Most likely it will be held in Washington.

Moscow is silent, demonstrating with all its appearance that the presence of Russian soldiers on the territory of Karabakh says more than the statements of the parties and even more so of the moderators. As if in response to this resounding silence, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan reminded his Russian colleagues at the NATO summit in Vilnius that the term of their peacekeeping mission ends in 2025, after which it must leave Azerbaijan. Actually, this was a message not only to Moscow but also to Yerevan, which is prone to fall from one illusion into another.

In any case, given all of the above, there are no special hopes for advancement in Brussels. But after Brussels, the most interesting things are likely to begin.