Paul Goble
Staunton, Aug. 21 – Earlier this year, leaders in both Armenia and Azerbaijan expressed confidence that they had achieved sufficient progress toward a peace treaty between the two countries that such an accord could be signed before the end of 2024, confidence welcomed by many countries involved in the region.
But now experts in the two capitals say that the prospects for such an accord have dimmed to the point that they do not believe that a peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan will be signed this year, with an Armenian expert saying that the situation now is “closer to war than peace” (rbc.ru/politics/21/08/2024/66c49ca59a7947ef332ddd43).
Both Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan last spring expressed confidence that they could reach agreement before the UN Climate Conference in Baku in November 2024; and as recently as July, Aliyev said the document was “80 to 90 percent” complete.
The two sides seemed to have been making progress especially when they decided to drop what both had seen as a requirement that a peace treaty address the reopening of transportation routes crossing the territory of the other, an especially sensitive issue for Azerbaijan concerning the Zengezur/Syunik corridor.
But sticking points remain to this day. Baku wants Yerevan in calling for the disbanding of the OSCE Minsk Group, something Yerevan is prepared to do only after a peace accord is agreed to, and the Azerbaijani side wants Armenia to drop its constitutional reference to Qarabagh, something Yerevan can’t do without a referendum.
As a result, both Farkhad Mamedov, head of the Baku Center for Research on the South Caucasus, and Armenian political scientist Grant Mikaelyan say that there is unlikely to be any agreement signed this year, with the latter saying that the situation is deteriorating and may even lead to a new round of fighting.
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