Azerbaijani political scientist: Leading countries have not exerted serious pressure on Armenia
Azerbaijan, Baku, June 25 / Trend, S. Agayeva /
Leading countries, unfortunately, do not exert serious pressure on Armenia, Azerbaijani political scientist Fikret Sadikhov beleives.
"Leading countries, unfortunately, do not exert serious pressure on Armenia, and continue to reckon with its caprices, continuing to equate both sides of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, realizing that not Armenia's but Azerbaijan's territories are occupied," Azerbaijani political analyst Fikret Sadikhov said commenting on the results of the Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian presidents' Kazan meeting on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement.
The summit of the Presidents of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia ended without reaching an agreement on the basic principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement, but the sides mentioned the progress towards this goal, a joint statement after the summit in Kazan said, RIA Novosti reported.
The Presidents Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan, Dmitry Medvedev of Russia and Serzh Sargsyan of Armenia discussed the basic principles of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement on Friday in Kazan.
"The Heads of State highlighted the achievement of mutual understanding on a number of issues, the solution of which contributes to creating conditions to approve the basic principles," said the statement.
The document says that the meeting participants reviewed the activities conducted to agree upon the project of basic principles.
Sadikhov said that the Azerbaijani society as represented by officials, as well as the expert community, initially was very pragmatic to the Kazan meeting, and there were not particularly optimistic expectations, because the long-term conflict, the ongoing negotiation process within the Minsk Group for nearly twenty years and its failure is a important fact and indicates the character and complexities of the negotiation process and Armenia's position in this format.
According to Sadikhov, the preparation for these negotiations demonstrates the interest of the leading states in the conflict - it has been demonstrated by the U.S. President's calls to the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders, a statement of the French President, who called his country as "Armenia's sister", and key role of Russia as represented by this country's president.
"Each of these states has its own interests and own positions - they need peace, stability and implementation of various projects, including in energy spheres, and, of course, sustainable peace, which would create the conditions for such perspective," Sadikhov said.
He said making concession to Azerbaijan in the negotiation process means losing power for Sargsyan. "And Sargsyan understands that making concession, beginning to return the Azerbaijani territories is like death and loss of power for some reason for him. In this situation, serious pressure of the leading countries on Yerevan was necessary, so that this pressure was an acquittal factor of concessions in the negotiations," the analyst said.
Sadikhov believes that there was a little, but certain progress in Kazan.
"This is reflected in the presidents' statement, it is some marked convergence of positions and, of course, the interest of the leading global players, who wish to establish peace and stability in the region," he said.
The conflict between the two South Caucasus countries began in 1988 when Armenia made territorial claims against Azerbaijan. Armenian armed forces have occupied 20 percent of Azerbaijan since 1992, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region and 7 surrounding districts.
Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a ceasefire agreement in 1994.
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group - Russia, France, and the U.S. - are currently holding the peace negotiations.
Armenia has not yet implemented the U.N. Security Council's four resolutions on the liberation of the Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding regions.
