This year's first trilateral meeting between the presidents of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, Russia Dmitry Medvedev and Armenia Serj Sargsyan was held in Sochi on Jan. 25 to discuss peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Trend News Agency has asked the Azerbaijani experts to assess the results of this meeting from the point of view of settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Rasim Musabeyov, political scientist
Yet the only result of this meeting can be that the sides again discussed the difficult issues of conflict solution. After the meeting in Sochi, Russia's Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, and co-chairmen only said that the meeting was constructive, but nothing was told about the progress achieved.
In any case, we will have to await the comments of the Azerbaijani side regarding the talks. According to the statement, Lavrov did not want to make publicly available the results achieved during the negotiations, if progress was made, so that the heads of state first discussed it with their closest advisors, or Lavrov thus tried to hide the full failure of this meeting.
Oktay Sadikhzadeh, political scientist
Sochi meeting can be considered a definite step forward in the negotiation process on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement. But the fact remains that without concrete pressure on Yerevan, the Armenian authorities will not demonstrate a more democratic will and wisdom, and will not free occupied territories.
Recently, Russia is increasingly taking control over the negotiation process. After all, between the superpowers there is a definite struggle in the region, including for energy corridors, for the right to influence one or another side.
The Kremlin is trying to influence one, then the other side, controlling the region, and not allowing the Americans here. Russia is ready to act only as a guarantor of the agreements between the two countries. Unless Russia swerves from its classical position, the process will not move off the deadlock.
The negotiation process may delay - and not for one year. So we all need to prepare for the information war for Karabakh.
Rasim Agayev, political scientist
It needs to approach the Sochi meeting with a position of more cautious optimism. No breakthrough occurred or expected there. On the other hand, Moscow manages to keep the conflicting sides in the negotiating process.
It is necessary to expect progress not now, but after the sides express their readiness for new compromises - this is an interim status for Nagorno Karabakh, the return of the Azerbaijani community to Karabakh.
Russia wants to resolve the issue in a way not offending Armenia, and at the same time maintain relations with Azerbaijan. In principle, Moscow is satisfied with both options - achieve a compromise between the sides or keep the conflict unresolved.
"AZERBAIJAN-ARMENIA TALKS IN SOCHI WERE COMPLETE FAILURE"
“The negotiations held under the Madrid principles are doomed to failure from the very beginning,” Azerbaijani political expert Arif Yunus said, day.az reported.
He was commenting on Russian FM Sergey Lavrov’s statement that “Armenia and Azerbaijan are developing their proposals for the document on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the preamble to the document has been agreed upon.”
"It is difficult to judge the essence of this preamble given that the information in this regard is very scarce. We learn about outcomes of the Sochi meeting of the Azerbaijani and Armenian presidents from the words of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov," Yunus added.
"I believe no documents had been adopted and the Sochi meeting was complete failure. The statement that the preamble, which is only an introduction to any international instrument, to the document on resolution of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict has been agreed upon is ridiculous, especially because the Madrid principles, under which now settlement process is carried out, is a document of just a page and half. So, the statements that the preamble has been negotiated is nothing but an attempt by organizers of the presidents’ Sochi meeting to "save face."
“It would be more diplomatic if a statement in the OSCE Minsk MG style were made after meeting saying that “the meeting marked another step towards resolving the Karabakh problem,” the political scientist noted.
"Of course, a certain part of society of the conflicting states hoped for progress in the Sochi meeting. But the time showed that they are not justified. I note that the negotiations which are held under the Madrid principles are doomed to failure, because they imply solution of the problem between Azerbaijan and Armenia not in a right way. Therefore, predictions of the experts, who hope for progress in the Karabakh conflict, will not be fulfilled,” Yunus said.
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