Meetings to Take Place between Aliyev, Pashinyan This Week and in December

Michel’s office said Pashinyan and Aliyev would meet “to discuss the regional situation and ways of overcoming tensions for a prosperous and stable South Caucasus, which the EU supports.” It said they also agreed to establish a direct communication line, at the level of defense ministers, “to serve as an incident prevention mechanism.”

The statement did not specify when such a line could become operational.

“The aim of the forthcoming talks is to establish some sort of trust between the two leaders via confidence building measures, especially in the field of connectivity,” the EU official said.

“We are talking here about transport corridors in Nagorno-Karabakh, transport projects involving both Armenia and Azerbaijan,” the source added.

The Russia-brokered ceasefire agreement that Armenia and Azerbaijan signed to put an end to six weeks of fighting in Nagorno-Karabakh last November also referred to a new route for a connection between Armenians inside Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia that was understood to be approved within the next three years, with the agreement of the parties, after which Russian peacekeepers would be redeployed to protect that route. It has been a year since the signing of that trilateral statement, but so far nothing has been reported about any agreement reached between the parties.

The passing week has seen a further escalation of tensions between Armenia and Azerbaijan that on November 16 had their worst fighting along their un-demarcated border since the 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

It was during that escalation that the president of the European Council had phone talks with Pashinyan and Aliyev, calling for “urgent de-escalation and full respect of the ceasefire.”

According to the EU source, “Michel, Pashinyan and Aliyev have built up quite a good rapport in the last couple of months, and Michel has spoken to them 4-6 times in the last couple of months.” Besides, Michel also speaks regularly with the presidents of Turkey and Russia, the source added.

Confirming the news of the upcoming meeting in Brussels, the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry said on Saturday, November 20 that Baku has repeatedly stated its position on the post-conflict situation in the region, including in the international arena.

“In this regard, we believe that the summit of the Eastern Partnership, and the meeting that will take place on the sidelines of this event will create additional opportunities,” Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva said.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry has also confirmed the news of the upcoming meeting, but has not provided any further comments on that yet.

Turkey Mediation

Armenia has asked Russia to mediate in the normalization of its relations with Turkey, an Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman said on November 22. Vahan Hunanyan said a number of Armenia’s partners, including Russia, have expressed readiness to mediate in Turkish-Armenian normalization and the Armenian side has asked Moscow to be a go-between.

A number of international partners, including Russia, have stated that they are ready to support the Armenian-Turkish settlement process. And we have informed Russia that we are ready to start the Armenian-Turkish settlement process without preconditions. When and if such a process starts, naturally, we will provide information on that, “Hunanyan said.

In August, the leaders of Armenia and Turkey spoke about “positive signals” coming from the other side of the border. In September, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan even revealed that through Georgia’s prime minister, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had offered him to meet. He added, however, that for such a meeting to take place, Yerevan had to take “clear steps” towards “[opening] the Zangezur corridor [for Azerbaijan].”

Shortly afterwards Pashinyan reiterated through a spokesperson that Armenia does not accept what he called ‘corridor logic’ in unblocking transport links in the region, but added that Yerevan was ready for contacts with Ankara.

According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry spokesman, no direct talks have taken place between Yerevan and Ankara yet.

In a recent interview with Le Figaro, Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan said that Ankara was setting new conditions for starting a dialogue with Yerevan, including the provision of an exterritorial corridor that would connect Azerbaijan and its exclave of Nakhichevan.

Mirzoyan told the French daily that the demand for such a corridor was out of the question.

“States must allow transit while maintaining sovereignty over their territory,” he said. ”All transport links in the region must be reopened.”

Foreign Ministry spokesman Hunanyan said Mirzoyan’s remarks were based “on public statements made by Turkey about the so-called Zangezur corridor.”

“They [Turks] have constantly raised this subject at the level of both the president and the foreign minister. And we say that such a thing cannot happen. However, as I mentioned, there have been no negotiations, “the official added.