Which negotiation venue is more effective in Armenia-Azerbaijan normalisation process? Ukrainian, Israeli experts on Caliber.Az

Negotiations on the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani relations after the 44-day war are alternately conducted under the moderating of the three parties - Moscow, Brussels, and Washington. However, these talks have not yet gained any particular breakthroughs due to Yerevan's destructive stance. In recent months, however, it has become clear that the sides have leaned toward meetings held under the auspices of the United States and the European Union, rather than on Russian territory.

More recently, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin made a number of statements on the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement in an interview with Russia 24 on June 9. In short, he said that "We consider the set of trilateral agreements [signed by Aliyev, Putin, and Pashinyan] an uncontested roadmap for the process of reconciliation between the two peoples". All other options are immediately bad. Why doesn't Moscow allow for the possibility of settling relations and achieving peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan under the moderating of the West?

What is the best venue for the two sides to negotiate, and why? Whose mediation is most likely to lead to a satisfactory outcome for Baku and Yerevan?

Foreign experts have shared their opinion on this issue with Caliber.Az.

The President of the Ukrainian Centre for Global Studies "Strategy XXI", editor-in-chief of "The Black Sea Security" magazine Mykhailo Gonchar mentioned that Russia is not exactly a mediator who needs a final settlement of the conflict in the South Caucasus.

"Putin's regime is a moderator of war, not peace. Russia needs a simmering conflict to manipulate both sides.

Europe is helpless. Brussels might want a settlement, but they are powerless to do anything.

The US is far away and has little interest in what is happening in the region. They are no longer interested in Caspian oil. They have practically surrendered the Persian Gulf region to China, so there is no point in counting on their active policy in the South Caucasus. The only thing they are interested in is Iran, but this issue, figuratively speaking, is assigned to Israel.

Therefore, if Baku wants a final settlement, it is necessary to try to activate the USA in the South Caucasus track through the Israelis. The chances are few, but they are nevertheless different from zero. Otherwise, the story with the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group - many years of fruitless discussions which led nowhere - will repeat itself," says the Ukrainian political expert.

According to prominent Israeli political analyst Roman Gurevich, Ambassador Emeritus of the World Jewish Agency Sohnut in Azerbaijan, when we watch the negotiations, the efforts to achieve a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, we cannot escape the feeling that there is some sort of competition.

"For a very long time, the international community did not pay attention to Baku's calls to actually contribute to ending the occupation and restoring the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. Apparently, because it was convenient for it. From the experience of communicating with European politicians, I will say that many of them simply did not know about the occupation of 20% of Azerbaijani lands. Although it is more than the territory of, for example, all of Lebanon. They did not know about the refugees, the displaced people.

As a result, Azerbaijan independently implemented the provisions of international decisions on its problem, and Türkiye and Russia took an active part in this. The latter brought its peacekeepers into Karabakh. Russia and Türkiye were part of this situation, while Europe and the USA missed the opportunity and were actually left aside," the expert believes.

But the West did not like this result, because they want to have influence, they want their opinion to be taken into account, to be respected, etc., Gurevich said. All the time after the signing of the Trilateral Declaration, Azerbaijan has consistently sought to conclude the final peace, to mark and establish permanent borders, and the Armenian leadership has been walking away from that. Because it hoped that it could still twist and trick. The Russian peacekeepers also facilitated Armenian fighters' movement along the Karabakh roads that they were guarding.

"But Baku continued to pursue a multi-vector foreign policy. And the EU invited the sides for high-level talks. So Brussels and Paris wanted to be relevant to the affairs of the region again. Negotiations began. Then the US joined the process, negotiations started to take place there as well. Now the USA is active in organizing the Baku-Yerevan dialogue. Simply, unlike Europe, America has additional levers, that it tries to use. Washington is a very important player, but it does not play to its full potential.

Eventually, it got to the point that Pashinyan began to accept the necessity of recognizing each other's state borders. He realised there was no way out, he had to go for agreements. But it was one step forward, two steps back. In desperate situations, he would admit something and then step back again.

And then Russia has already started to notice that it is left out. In my opinion, the US and the EU are trying to leave Russia out of this settlement, and Russia is trying to do the same with them, organizing meetings in Moscow, Sochi, and so on.

And Baku's wisdom is that by correctly and skillfully playing on these disagreements, it promotes its interests, makes the West and Russia compete to see which of them can do better and more to achieve a just peace.

Both Russian and Western venues are useful for negotiations and Azerbaijan uses them both, provoking a competition between them. This can lead to a just and lasting peace," the Israeli political scientist believes.