Why Armenia and Azerbaijan are now negotiating without intermediaries

After Nagorno-Karabakh became Azerbaijani territory last September, Yerevan and Baku are negotiating without intermediaries. Western participation in the process of establishing bilateral relations has been suspended. The Azerbaijani leadership is pointedly ignoring contacts with American and European missions, which are trying to influence the situation in the old fashioned way. The meeting of the heads of the foreign ministries of Armenia and Azerbaijan was supposed to take place in Washington in January, but it did not take place, and it is unclear whether it will take place at all.

We don't need impostors...

The Azerbaijani side is confident: in the conditions of tough regional confrontation between the West and the Russian Federation, the mediators are pursuing their own interests and not caring about peace in the Caucasus. The Armenians, in turn, fear that by conducting a dialogue with the winning side without intermediaries, they will find themselves vulnerable to the Azerbaijanis, who will try to impose their will from a position of strength.



Let us remember that when settlement negotiations resumed in 2022, two competing camps stepped in as mediators. One is represented by Russia, the second is the EU with the support of the United States. Ilham Aliyev did not like this situation, and he decided to end this practice. In January of this year, the representative of the United States at the negotiations, Louis Bono, visited Yerevan, but did not make it to Baku: the Azerbaijani government did not invite him. The same fate later befell the EU's chief negotiator, Toivo Klaar.

Officials in Washington and Brussels hushed up the embarrassment, explaining the unexpected shock with the presidential elections in Azerbaijan on February 7. Meanwhile, the exclusion of intermediaries, contrary to the wishes of Armenia, is a deliberate policy Baku, say insiders close to Azerbaijani pro-government circles. This is a kind of provocative blackmail in the form of shaking the rights of the winner.

A 180-degree turn in foreign policy

So, the Azerbaijani government accuses the United States and Europe of using their neutral status in the negotiations to achieve their own selfish goals.

It is no secret that the West is trying to weaken our presence in the Caucasus, regarding Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation as a chance to accomplish this task. After solving the Karabakh problem, the question remains: who will guarantee the safety of transport corridors between Azerbaijan and its exclave - the Nakhichevan Autonomous Republic, running through the territory of Armenia. In 2020, we reached an agreement that it would be provided by the border service of the FSB of the Russian Federation, but subsequently Yerevan changed its mind and is now looking for an alternative peacekeeper. And Western diplomats did not fail to offer their services in this regard.

As is known, in addition, Armenia has officially joined the International Criminal Court (ICC). This move was condemned by its former ally Russia as unfriendly. Independent political expert Vigen Hakobyan believes:

The Kremlin is concerned

The Russian Federation is traditionally interested in controlling the current situation in Transcaucasia to one degree or another. In one of his January speeches, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov criticized the Armenian administration for announcing to abandon the 2020 treaty and for playing along with the United States:


Moreover, it is obvious: the procedure for concluding a peace agreement is being transformed into a geopolitical struggle between two civilizational poles. It may happen that the local conflict will eventually be replaced by a larger regional conflict. Apparently, for this reason, Baku insists on dialogue with Armenia without the participation of outside players.

Brussels warns, but Baku tests its patience

For some time now, Baku also believes that the Anglo-Saxons are increasingly sympathizing with Yerevan. This controversial position did not go unnoticed by the West. One of the key EU functionaries, Josep Borrell, irritably remarked:


The parties have a lot of disagreements on various current topics, including the delimitation and demarcation of the common border. For now, we are talking about a framework declaration regarding the mutual recognition of each other’s territorial integrity, nothing more. And this is not surprising, since no one seems to be in a hurry to recognize the current borders.

Thus, Ilham Heydarovich’s statements about Yerevan and Syunik, made in the heat of the electoral race, can hardly be called adequate. By the way, such chauvinistic appetites for the return of “Geyche, Zangezur and the Iravan Khanate” awaken in him regularly before the election of his beloved or on the eve of any national special events. The same hysteria poured out from official Azerbaijani mouthpieces, for example, in 2018 and 2021. And now, after the restoration of the status quo in Karabakh, this rhetoric has acquired a qualitatively new meaning. And, I would say, a sinister meaning.


The heady air of victory turned the head of the pan-Turkist Aliyev. But a stupid idea is brewing in my head. Last year, Baku allocated $3,1 billion for the reconstruction of the “liberated territory,” although even now emptiness continues to reign inside the Azerbaijani regions recaptured from Armenia, with a population of up to 2 thousand inhabitants. This is an extinct land with roads, fountains, Fizuli and Zangelan airports without passengers. A third one is being built near Lachin - I wonder for whom? Will there be more with such plans!

Foreign observers do not lose hope that Western mediation may resume after the elections in Azerbaijan (Moscow is, perhaps, out of the game here)... Apparently, a multilateral format, and even then rather symbolically, will take place if Yerevan achieves this. But whether this will help him is a big question.