EU Council President Charles Michel expressed optimism on this score on Thursday after phoning Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to congratulate him on winning yet another term in office in Wednesday’s election which European observers described as deeply flawed.
Writing on the X social media platform, Michel said they “had substantive discussions also on the Armenia-Azerbaijan normalization.” He welcomed Azerbaijan’s “commitment to resume” trilateral peace talks in Brussels.
Commenting on Michel’s tweet, Artur Hovannisian, a parliamentary leader of Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party, said there is still “no clarity” on the talks mentioned by the EU’s top official.
“I don’t know how realistic this is in practice right now,” Hovannisian told reporters. “Naturally, Armenia is in favor of resuming negotiations in that format.”
Michel has repeatedly hosted meetings between Aliyev and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian in the last three years. Aliyev twice cancelled more such meetings which were due to take place in October.
Baku accused the EU as well as the United States powers of pro-Armenian bias and said the two conflicting sides should now negotiate without third-party mediation. Yerevan has indicated until now that it prefers continued Western mediation of the negotiation process.
Hayk Mamijanian, a senior member of the opposition Pativ Unem bloc, said direct negotiations are extremely dangerous for the Armenian side. Mamijanian claimed at the same time that any negotiation held by Pashinian would spell trouble for Armenia because of the Armenian premier’s willingness to keep making more concessions to Azerbaijan.