The meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Elmar Mammadyarov, was held in Geneva, taking place with the mediation and participation of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs Igor Popov, Stéphane Visconti, Andrew Schofer, and the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. This was stated in a Facebook post by Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Anna Naghdalyan.
Armenian Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan had earlier held a separate meeting with the Karabakh mediators.
Armenian analysts do not have great expectations from the Mnatsakanyan-Mammadyarov meeting in terms of substance.
According to political analyst Hagop Badalyan, the issue for the Armenian side is to move beyond the disposition of the previous application of the Madrid Principles. Badalyan referred to the prime minister’s recent press conference, during which Nikol Pashinyan had presented the process inherited from the previous government, which, in his view, needs to be changed.
“In my assessment, in the current negotiating atmosphere or in this atmosphere of the situation of meetings, the dictating and initiating position is passing to Armenia, moving from a defensive regime to a more initiating and situation-creating regime. From this perspective, in Azerbaijan too, those internal changes and internal competition are substantially conditioned by Armenia’s policy, because Baku largely stands before the following dilemma: either to start a war, or to think about somehow saving face and talking about peace without preconditions. Because starting a war is extremely difficult and extremely risky for Azerbaijan,” Badalyan noted.
Political scientist Manvel Sargsyan recalls the co-chairs’ call regarding not presenting preconditions and notes that there has been no response from Azerbaijan since then. To the observation of “Azatutyun” as to whether the created situation is not a dead end, and whether this could create an uneasy situation on the border, Sargsyan responded that the negotiations have no connection with the war.
“I am not saying that using the negotiating process, there has been Azerbaijan’s so-called military diplomacy; we all knew that they went to negotiations, that they are going to hit soldiers before going, during the process. That is, this logic existed, this logic seems not to exist, Azerbaijan has already renounced it, whether it fears, cannot, or derives no benefit from it either. Therefore, when we say that this state could be more dangerous, but we have had a more dangerous three-year de facto war — 14, 15, 16, even 17 — therefore we must conduct politics — simply, clearly,” Sargsyan said.
Political analysts also emphasized that the meeting takes place at a time when there is a tense situation in the region related to Iran. They also draw attention to Azerbaijan’s pre-election moods, which could also affect the dialogue between the parties.
