Political analyst says Sargsyan-Aliyev meeting may not take place (video)
Political analyst Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan does not exclude that the meeting of presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan to be held in Switzerland’s capital Bern on December 18 may not take place. I see that Ilham Aliyev’s steps of the last two years are aimed at thwarting the peace talks, therefore I do not exclude that he may decide at the last minute not to turn up at the meeting. The meeting has been postponed twice this year. While the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs force Aliyev to return to the negotiating table, are trying to do it in another way, i.e. by escalating the border situation,” the political analyst said. He says the border tensions of the past two weeks speak of Aliyev’s intentions. “If they are disposed of to avoid the negotiation process, we can cast doubts on the possibility of [continuing talks] as long as Aliyev has not come and sat at the negotiating table with Serzh Sargsyan. The Aliyev administration has always shown that their country is preparing for war, rather than peace and the destabilization of the border situation is evidence of this. It is obvious that they do not have any desire to negotiate,” Mr Melik-Shahnazaryan said. What will happen if the meeting is held, anyway? In reply to A1+, the political analyst said, “We need not have high expectations from the meeting because the peace process has been in deadlock for more than a year. Azerbaijan has changed the weapons used in ceasefire violations; the situation has also changed on the frontline, which means we cannot expect any breakthrough. We cannot expect that one meeting can neutralize everything and return everything to the former state.”
