Monday’s meeting of the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian presidents may define their stance on the principles of a Karabakh settlement.

The meeting of Ilham Aliyev, Serzh Sargsyan and Dmitry Medvedev in Sochi on 25 January may focus on the adoption of a document defining the parties’ attitude to the Basic Principles of the Karabakh conflict settlement, political scientist Rasim Musabeyov said today.

“This will probably take the form of the adoption of a statement at least partially defining the attitude to the basic principles of the resolution and paving the way for work on the framework agreement,” Musabeyov said.

He said that a lot of work had gone into the visit in advance. The Russian foreign minister visited Yerevan, the Armenian president and defence minister visited Moscow and the head of the Russian presidential administration is to visit Azerbaijan ahead of the meeting.

“This proves that Russia is serious about promoting a resolution,” the political scientist said.

Commenting on Russia’s increased mediation role on Karabakh, Musabeyov said “this is a reality which should be used as a foundation.”

“Everyone understands that only Russia can put pressure on Armenia. It is also clear that Russia is not going to do everyone a favour for free. In in this case it has its own interests. Relations with Azerbaijan are profitable to it and give political and economic dividends. Meanwhile, relations with Armenia do not give dividends although they are a lever to take something from Azerbaijan. If they want to get something from us, they will use this lever. But Armenia is not profitable to Russia at all,” the political scientist said.

Musabeyov ruled out a possible resumption of hostilities by the Armenians to avoid an unacceptable solution to the Karabakh problem.

“Armenia does not have the forces to attack Azerbaijan today. Yes, they can defend themselves in the mountains, and inflict great losses on Azerbaijan, but any attack on the Azerbaijani plains will be disastrous for Armenia. Azerbaijan has superiority in the air and we will just destroy their hardware,” Musabeyov said.