Azerbaijan has outlined its priorities in the peace process with Armenia for the foreseeable future. As expected, Baku is in no rush to make peace.
Azerbaijan and Armenia will discuss the text of the peace treaty again next month. This was stated by the presidential advisor last Tuesday in a conversation with TASS on the sidelines of the 29th session of the Conference of the Parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (COP29). Ilham Aliyev – Head of the Foreign Policy Department of the Presidential Administration Hikmet Hajiyev.
“At the moment, the main item on Azerbaijan’s agenda is COP-29 until the end of November. Surely, starting in December, a new process between Azerbaijan and Armenia will begin on the discussion and continuation of negotiations on the text of the peace treaty.” — a high-ranking official expressed confidence.
According to Hajiyev, the text of the draft agreement “On the establishment of peace and interstate relations between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan” contains certain issues that require improvement.
“Therefore, at the expert level, discussions and negotiations continue.” — Gadzhiev explained.
“The Armenian side did not respond in time to our proposals on the text of the peace treaty. And so we perceive a delayed process in this context. Surely starting in December there will be a new process.” – he added.
The mention by a representative of the Azerbaijani presidential administration of the upcoming “new process” is noteworthy for several reasons.
First, the concept of “process” implies a long duration of diplomatic efforts before the parties sign a document. Baku makes it clear that a forced conclusion of the negotiations should not be expected.
As for the definition of “new”, expressed by President Aliyev’s advisor on foreign policy issues, it is actually used for the first time in the vocabulary of Azerbaijani officials and may be associated with recent events outside the South Caucasus.
Victory donald trump in this month’s elections will likely remove the region from US priority attention. Consequently, the current American pressure on Baku, which is pushing it towards an early peace with Yerevan, will be reduced. Last month, the outgoing president of the United States joe biden addressed messages to President Ilham Aliyev and the Prime Minister Nikola Pashinyanasking them to complete negotiations and sign peace before the end of this year. The wish was expressed before the Democrats’ crushing defeat in the November 5 elections, when they “lost” both the White House and both chambers of Congress. In light of the new circumstances, Aliyev no longer has special reasons to follow Biden’s call, which even in Washington few people take into account, but there are good reasons to raise the question of the need for a “new process” in Armenia . -Azerbaijani settlement.
It remains to be understood what exactly is meant by novelty in Baku after the closing of the COP29 climate conference (November 22). Rather, we are talking about changes in the methodology of negotiations, including the parties’ choice of a mutually acceptable venue for future discussions at the level of foreign ministers, and not about the substantive part of the peace process. It is difficult to imagine Baku’s attempts to introduce serious modifications to the text of the agreement when, to this day, it has been approved, by mutual admission of Baku and Yerevan, “by 80-90 percent.”
According to the statements of Armenian officials, in the text of the agreement there remain “one or two” phrases on which disagreements remain, and as soon as they are removed, we can talk about completing the negotiations and signing a bilateral document. At the same time, having reported in parliament on October 31 on “one or two” points on which an agreement cannot yet be reached, the head of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Ararat Mirzoyan He expressed “cautious optimism” about the possibility of reaching a compromise.
The content of the not yet agreed points of the peace agreement was revealed earlier this month by the director of the Baku Center for Analysis of International Relations (CAMO, funded by the government of Azerbaijan). Farid Shafiev. He claims that they relate to the withdrawal of European observers stationed within the framework of the EU mandate on the territory of Armenia since February 20, 2023 from the Armenia-Azerbaijan border and the exclusion of international legal disputes between Azerbaijan and Armenia . According to him, the third point of lack of coordination concerns the issue of amending the Constitution of Armenia, which Baku insists on, pointing out the presence of “territorial claims” against Azerbaijan in the Basic Law of the neighboring country.
Washington, after Trump’s official return to the White House (January 20, 2025) and the beginning of his administration, apparently leaves the list of places to finalize the peace agreement between the two Transcaucasian republics. After the end of the 44-day war in Karabakh, Armenia and Azerbaijan held several rounds of negotiations in the US capital. Over the past four years, they have also been held once in Berlin (February 28-29, 2024) and Almaty (May 10-11, 2024).
With the personal mediation of the head of the Russian state. Vladimir Putin The Azerbaijani president and the Armenian prime minister held a series of trilateral meetings aimed at a common solution to the protracted conflict between neighboring countries. The last contact between Aliyev and Pashinyan, organized by Russian leaders last month on the sidelines of the BRICS summit in Kazan, was already bilateral.
The predisposition to such a “direct” format of negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan at the highest political level was previously indicated by the Yerevan official through Pashinyan*. Aliyev, as is clear from the fact that the meeting was held in Kazan on October 24, is not against it. Furthermore, in a conversation with TASS, his assistant noted the day before that the meeting between the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia at the BRICS summit in Kazan turned out to be fruitful and gave positive impulses for the continuation of negotiations.
“There was a very fruitful meeting in Kazan between Mr. President (of Azerbaijan) and the Prime Minister of Armenia. And our intention is to continue negotiations based on these impulses.” – Gadzhiev stressed.
Aliyev himself previously expressed the closeness of Baku and Yerevan to reaching a final agreement on the text of the peace treaty and the intention to continue negotiations once COP29 is over.
Perhaps it was Kazan that laid the first stone of the “new process” (according to Baku), and became the starting point of the final inclination of Armenia and Azerbaijan to conduct direct negotiations at all levels of interstate communication, including leaders of the two countries.
Recall that after a conversation between Aliyev and Pashinyan on October 24 in the capital of the Republic of Tatarstan, which lasted more than an hour, it was decided to give instructions to the heads of the foreign affairs departments of the Transcaucasian republics to “continue bilateral negotiations. on the agreement “On the establishment of peace and interstate relations” with a view to its early conclusion and conclusion in the shortest possible time.”
The Azerbaijani leader had systematically rejected diplomatic efforts by France and the European Union as a whole, then began speaking more harshly about the United States’ ability to act as an “honest broker” and even about its destructive role in the region. . . The United States is manipulating sanctions against Azerbaijan, Aliyev said early last month during a meeting with residents of the city of Jebrail, which was under the control of Armenian forces from 1993 to 2020. He recalled that the country was under US restrictions in 1992. , when it “lost land” during the first Karabakh war, and in 2001 its application to Baku was suspended. According to Aliyev, this happened because the United States needed Azerbaijan as a transit country “because its occupation activities began in Afghanistan.”
“While they remained in Afghanistan, the president of the United States lifted these sanctions annually. As soon as they fled Afghanistan, and in front of the entire world, these sanctions were reimposed against us. Is it possible to be so ungrateful? That is, when they needed us, they lifted these sanctions, and when they were no longer necessary, they reestablished them again.” — the head of the republic was outraged (quote from the Azerbaijan State News Agency, AZERTAC).
Obviously, Aliyev’s outrage at US policy towards Azerbaijan was due to the pressure we mentioned earlier from the Biden administration and the calls emanating from there for an early peace with Armenia. The Azerbaijani leader’s rhetoric toward the Trump administration will likely soften. But this no longer has much importance for the “new process” as Baku understands it. Moscow is taking the lead as an external force with world power status. The only thing left is to wait for the end of COP29 and continue bilateral negotiations on the path to concluding peace.
*During his next conversation with representatives of the Armenian media on August 31 of this year, Pashinyan made it clear that he prefers a bilateral format to move towards the signing of peace, negotiating directly with the Azerbaijani side without resorting to intermediary services from third countries . The Prime Minister spoke about this when answering a question about his August 23 telephone conversation with President Vladimir Putin, during which the Russian Head of State confirmed Moscow’s readiness to become a key mediator between Yerevan and Baku. Speaking of his preference for a bilateral dialogue with Azerbaijan, Pashinyan, quite unexpectedly, on the last day of last summer, suggested that Aliyev consider holding their possible meeting on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, since the deputy prime ministers of The two republics preside over the border. commissions have practiced in recent years.
