Expert assesses likelihood of peace treaty between Baku and Baku

The signing of a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan at a meeting in the US, mediated by US President Donald Trump, is not expected, but a document of mutual understanding may be approved, Oleg Kuznetsov, honorary doctor of the Abbas-Kuli-aga Bakikhanov Institute of History of the National Academy of Sciences of Azerbaijan and associate professor at the Russian State Social University (RGSU), told RIA Novosti.

The Armenian government has confirmed that a meeting between US President Donald Trump, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will take place in Washington. The American media has reported on the possibility of a peace treaty being signed.

"Statements about the imminent signing of a peace treaty or some other document preceding it, with a specific time frame, have been heard since the fall of 2021. Almost four years have passed, and during this time there has been a lot of talk about negotiations and consultations between Baku and Yerevan, but there are still no practical results. I am not sure that tomorrow in Washington, in President Trump's office, a peace treaty between Azerbaijan and Armenia will be signed. It will most likely be some other document on mutual understanding between the two Transcaucasian countries," Kuznetsov said.

In his opinion, the document may turn out to be meaningless, with no binding political or legal consequences for the signatories.

“As for the claims of a number of political analysts that Prime Minister Pashinyan will betray Armenia's interests in exchange for guarantees of personal safety and legal immunity for his property outside the country, I am inclined to support them,” Kuznetsov said.

In 2022, Yerevan and Baku, with the mediation of Russia, the US, and the EU, began discussions on a future peace treaty. At the end of May 2023, Pashinyan stated that Yerevan was ready to recognize Azerbaijan's sovereignty within the Soviet borders, that is, together with Karabakh. On September 19, 2023, Azerbaijan launched a military operation in Karabakh that lasted about a day. As a result, Aliyev said that the country had restored its territorial integrity, and the de facto authorities of the region announced the “self-dissolution” of the unrecognized republic from January 1, 2024.

Azerbaijan insists on the construction of the so-called Zangezur transport corridor to connect its main territory with Nakhchivan through the Armenian province of Syunik. Yerevan does not agree with the idea of the corridor and is ready to open a road under Armenian sovereignty to Azerbaijan. In August 2024, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that Moscow supports the early conclusion of a peace treaty between Yerevan and Baku and the unblocking of communications through the Syunik region of Armenia.

Russia fully supports the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian Presidential Press Secretary Dmitry Peskov said in July.

Reprinted from https://ria.ru/