BAKU, Azerbaijan, October 11. President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev met with President of the France Emmanuel Macron, President of the European Council Charles Michel and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan in Prague on October 6, Trend reports.
According to the statement made following the meeting, Azerbaijan and Armenia reaffirmed their commitment to the UN Charter and the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991, in which both countries recognized each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty.
The parties also confirmed that this will become the basis for the work of the commissions on border delimitation between Azerbaijan and Armenia, and the next meeting of the commissions will be held in Brussels at the end of October.
Researcher at the Canadian Global Affairs Institute Robert Cutler commenting on the meeting said that this is not the first time that Pashinyan publicly referred to the Alma-Ata Declaration of December 21, 1991, signed by Armenia, Azerbaijan and other post-Soviet countries, recognizing and respecting each other's territorial integrity and the inviolability of the existing borders.
“Also in mid-September this year, Pashinyan made favorable statements about signing a paper, as a result of which Armenia gets permanent peace and security with its territory of 29,800 square kilometers. That number was repeated more than once. It’s very clear that it limits territorial claims to Armenia itself and cannot include any Azerbaijani territory,” Cutler noted.
Nevertheless, according to him, assuming that Pashinyan can remain committed to the above statement after return to Yerevan, it augurs well for a possible peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
US analyst Irina Tsukerman noted that this major step in recognizing each other's territorial integrity is a major breakthrough, widely praised.
“It sends a signal to the populations of both countries that the countries are taking each other's national sovereignty seriously and are committed to the fulfillment of the trilateral agreement [signed by Azerbaijani, Armenian and Russian leaders following the 2020 second Karabakh war] and to the peace-building process,” Tsukerman said.
According to her, thus Pashinyan is sending a message that he understands that no provocations on the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan will be acceptable.
“Does that mean he is also committed to bringing Armenian troops out of the area where they should have been withdrawn from a long time ago? We’ll see whether his actions speak louder than words,” the analyst also noted. “For the international community, this means a serious diplomatic achievement that puts an end to propaganda campaigns and lobbying efforts by third parties such as Armenian diaspora in Western countries.”
No longer can these parties claim grievances, she further said.
“It's not clear what Armenia was hoping to achieve with the most recent military provocations. After the lack of interest in further propaganda by most of the international community on a political level, Pashinyan finally understood that the time for games is over and that it’s in the best interests of Armenia to move on with region integration,” Tsukerman said.