BRUSSELS — Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will meet in Brussels on Tuesday for talks hosted by European Council President Charles Michel, a senior European Union official said on Monday.
The official told RFE/RL that Michel, who heads the EU’s top decision-making body, will hold separate talks with Aliyev and Pashinian before attending a trilateral meeting with them.
“I wouldn’t like to preempt what would be the outcome tomorrow evening. There is still a lot of work going on at the moment,” said the official.
“We are working very hard at the moment with our Armenian and Azerbaijani friends on measures that can further strengthen confidence between them, building as well on the very, very successful establishment of a direct communication link between the ministers of defense of both countries that was facilitated a couple of weeks ago by President Michel,” he said.
“I do think this direct line has already been able to help deescalate some of the tensions on the ground and can also serve to prevent future incidents,” the official claimed just days after fresh fighting on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border left at least two soldiers from both sides dead and several others wounded.
Michel, he said, “has been particularly committed to finding a way out of tensions and this planned meeting is an important step forward.”
Aliyev and Pashinyan are scheduled to meet on the sidelines of the EU’s Eastern Partnership summit with several ex-Soviet states that will be held in Brussels on Wednesday.
The two leaders most recently met on November 26 in Sochi in the presence of Russian President Vladimir Putin. They reported major progress towards opening transport links between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Putin said a Russian-Armenian-Azerbaijani working group dealing with transport issues will formalize in the coming days relevant “decisions which we agreed today.” However, the group co-headed by deputy prime ministers of the three states announced no agreements after holding a meeting in Moscow on December 1.
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Europe know that Azerbaijan is the aggressor, along with Turkey.
But Europe is weak and of course it wants the gas and oil that Azerbaijan produces and sends through Turkey.
Let’s not kid ourselves.
It seems Aliyev demanded today the same approach of the Zangezur corridor as the Lachin corridor. Comparing the Lachin corridor and the odious word Zangezur corridor is a very transparent, crowd-pleasing political statement. Fits in with the image of Azerbeidjan.
The Syunik file is about Armenia’s autonomy, self-determination and sovereignity, so it can never be compared with the Lachin corridor.
What will possibly happen if the land corridor in southern Armenia (Syunik and Vayots Dzor) is realized by Azerbaijan in the upcoming peace negotiations with Armenia? Fill it in yourself and see the geographic consequences. The Artsakh war can then be described as child’s play.
A God’s gift to Turkey’s Pan-Turkism pursuit and the realization of the foundations of the desired ‘Turkic World’.
The “Turkish World 2040 Vision”, a strategic document for guiding future cooperation, was recently ratified in Istanbul during the 8th Turkic Council Summit (aka the Organization of Turkic States). It consists of Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Turkey and Uzbekistan as member countries and Hungary and Turkmenistan as observer states (established in 2009).
Noting also that, the leader of the Turkish parliamentary NMP, recently has presented the Turkish President, with a map of the ‘Turkic World’, which includes the regions of Southern Russia: the Kuban Region, Rostov Region, Dagestan, Chechnya and the Crimea.
The geographic map further states: Eastern Siberia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, the Balkans, Kyrgyzstan, Uzbekistan, the Xinjiang Uyghur Autonomous Region of China, and some territories of Mongolia and Iran.
Referring also to the October comment of the Azerbaijani President, Ilham Aliev stated that the Zangezur Corridor will unite the entire Turkic world.
Noted also the following phrase is very disturbing and almost unbelievable: “Azerbaijan’s goal is to have the corridor, which the leader of our country had given consent to, but had refused to fulfil the promise later because to give the corridor would mean to destroy Armenia. I believe the negotiations are being held to manoeuvre the words ‘road’ or ‘corridor’.”
Azerbaijan’s continued militarily provocative efforts, again recently, have only two goals: 1.) the realization of the land corridor and 2.) gain a better negotiating position in the peace negotiations. Pure threat, if I don’t get my way I’ll take it by force in plain language.
Back to July 12, 2020:
According to three different independently verified sources, Armenian forces RESPONDED and shelled the Tovuz district of Azerbaijan in direct response to Azerbaijan’s hostilities “around and within” the territory of Tavush Province in northeastern Armenia.
A legitimate defensive act of warfare.
According to the same sources, Baku wanted to make the northern land corridor that Azerbaijan has with Georgia and the EU more secure and also (more importantly) test how the Armenians would react.
It turned out to be a strategic miscalculation and after 4 days of hostilities failed miserably. No staged war was fabricated and the security of the BTC and Baku-Supsa oil pipelines, as well as of the South Caucasus gas pipeline (the Baku-Tbilisi-Erzurum line), these failed hostilities from Baku made even more unstable in the threat assessments in the EU and Russia.
The hostilities by Baku in the Tavush province and the provoked counter-attack by Armenia towards Tovuz on the border between Azerbaijan and Armenia, far from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh), can be considered a prelude to the Artsakh War of September 27, 2020.
The July 2020 distraction, test and failure aimed to militarily initiate the (hidden and desired) plan of a land corridor across Armenia. The second distraction would be Artsakh (this was an afterthought and a nice touch), the target of the southern province of Syunik bordering Iran and Artsakh.
The military build-up, training and supplies of weapons by Turkey to Baku took off as a result because it also turned out that without Turkey Baku would not succeed.
The urgency to connect Turkey, the enclave of Nakhchivan and Azerbaijan turned out to be great, but in the end too big to swallow, because on November 10, 2020, Moscow thought it was enough and intervened.
An actually strategically failed battle, which led to a stalemate.
So again.
What will possibly happen if the land corridor in southern Armenia (Syunik and Vayots Dzor) is realized by Azerbaijan in the upcoming peace negotiations with Armenia?
Fill it in yourself and see the geographic implications for Russia, the Near East, China, the Northern and Southern Caucasus, Southeast Europe and the global balance of power, which has been out of balance since this century.
Total chaos and more local wars through a single accomplished land corridor.
The Artsakh war can then be described as child’s play.
The Artsakh war was Azerbaijan’s test — and confirmation — that no one will stop her. Each assassination of innocent Armenian civilians by Azeri snipers in Goris and Syunik reaffirm this…. and no one does anything… not the EU, not Russia, not Armenia…
So, thinking of momentum, how does one conclude that the events to transpire will be any different than in the past 150 years? That is, Turks and Azeris continue to beleaguer Armenians, disarm them, scare them, distract them, then murder them….
Divide and conquer… Artsakh now completely isolated (not even any Armenians left to speak of); Armenia divided in two and weakened further (not being challenged by anyone); the final attack will come to rid the Caucasus of those annoying Armenian pests once and for all… and it appears that no one is stopping Turkey and Azerbaijan. Why…?
Why has Russia not annihilated Azeri troops in sovereign Armenia since 1 year now?