Analysts assess alignment of forces before meeting of Aliev and Pashinyan in Brussels

The Ilham Aliev’s position in the upcoming negotiations is stronger against the backdrop of the transfer to Azerbaijan of Lachin and two villages, Azerbaijani analysts Togrul Djuvarly and Mekhman Aliev point out.

On August 31, through the mediation of the President of the Council of the European Union Charles Michel, the Belgian capital is to host a meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

According to Togrul Djuvarly, a member of the Azerbaijan National Public Committee for European Integration, Baku is entering into negotiations with the stronger positions. “During the interval between the previous meeting of Ilham Aliev and Nikol Pashinyan, which took place in May, and the current one, important events took place in the region. These events further change the balance of power and strengthen the diplomatic and military-strategic positions of Azerbaijan. Azerbaijan carried out the ‘Retaliation’ counteroperation, as a result of which its forces took a number of strategic heights along the Lachin Corridor and along the perimeter of the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region. After that, the Armenian side stopped resisting the return of the city of Lachin (Armenian name is Berdzor, – note of the ‘Caucasian Knot’) and the villages of Zabukh (Armenian name is Akhavno, – note of the ‘Caucasian Knot’) and Sous to Azerbaijan, and on August 26, it was announced that the Azerbaijani forces would enter the mentioned settlements,” Togrul Djuvarly told the “Caucasian Knot” correspondent.

Mekhman Aliev, the director of the “Turan” news agency, believes that “serious progress in negotiations on a final peaceful settlement of the conflict” can be achieved in Brussels.

According to Mekhman Aliev, a decision can be made in Brussels to set up working groups to negotiate a peace agreement. A permanent negotiating mechanism is likely to start working soon, and working groups will start working on the text of a peace agreement somewhere in a third country, for example, in Georgia, where the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia already once met directly without intermediaries. At the same time, Mekhman Aliev believes that negotiations will go faster concerning the Zangezur Corridor and the delimitation of the state border.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on August 30, 2022 at 02:07 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.