European Council President Michel meets the President of Azerbaijan and the Prime Minister of Armenia in Brussels, 15 July 2023
Another meeting took place on Saturday 15 July between Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, facilitated by European Council President Charles Michel. Read more in my recent piece for Osservatorio Balcani e Caucaso Transeuropa.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev met again on Saturday (15 July) for talks in Brussels facilitated by European Council President Charles Michel. The meeting was the second this year in this format and comes hot on the heels of a U.S.-facilitated talks between the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers in June as well as new developments on the strategic highway connecting Armenia with what remains of the former Soviet-era Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO).
Prior to the 15th July meeting between the two leaders, there had already been other incidents on the crucial road, referred to for decades as the Lachin Corridor, that has increasingly seen Azerbaijan significantly restrict movement to various degrees at different times. The situation has led to the shortages of imported and some other goods in the besieged breakaway region.
The meeting lasted just 2.5 hours leading many to initially conclude that it had been fruitless. On 11 July, Azerbaijan fully closed its newly established border checkpoint on the entrance of the Lachin highway when checks on vehicles traveling as part of International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) humanitarian convoys to Karabakh from Armenia were found to be also transporting some non-humanitarian goods of a commercial nature.
In a statement, ICRC acknowledged that contraband was being smuggled but noted that they were discovered in Heavy Goods Vehicles (HGVs) operated by drivers from a commercial company, albeit temporarily under their emblem, contracted by ICRC to deliver assistance to Karabakh rather than in those official ICRC vehicles accompanying them. “These individuals were not ICRC staff members and their service contracts were immediately terminated by the ICRC,” it said in a statement issued after Baku temporarily suspended ICRC medical evacuations through the checkpoint manned by Azerbaijani border guards as a result.
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[…] one of the most pressing issues of all – the question of the rights and security of the Karabakh Armenians – remains unresolved with reported disagreements over how this will be discussed. Both Yerevan and Stepanakert want international involvement in any talks between Karabakh representatives and official Baku, something Azerbaijan rejects, though an apparently leaked memo from a 27 September 2022 meeting between Aliyev advisor Hikmet Hajiyev and Armenian Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan in Washington D.C. appeared to hint that an internationally visible rather than internationally mediated mechanism could be acceptable.
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“The population on the ground needs reassurances, first and foremost regarding their rights and security,” Charles Michel said following last weekend’s meeting. “In this context, I expressed the EU’s encouragement for direct dialogue between Baku and representatives of Armenians living in the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast. This dialogue should provide much-needed confidence for all those involved.”
The full article can be read here.
