Aliyev said on Friday that the summit slated for December 7 in Brussels will not take place because Pashinian wants French President Emmanuel Macron to also take part in it. He said that France can no longer mediate peace talks because of Macron’s recent pro-Armenian comments and “anti-Azerbaijani” resolutions adopted by French lawmakers.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry responded by saying that when Aliyev and Pashinian met in Prague on October 6 in the presence of Macron and EU chief Charles Michel they agreed that the French leader will also attend their meeting in Brussels. Baku should stick to that agreement, it said.
“There have also been other cases of the Azerbaijani side refusing to attend meetings despite preliminary agreements,” said Eduard Aghajanian, the chairman of the Armenian parliament committee on foreign relations. “In this sense, [Aliyev’s decision] is nothing new. It’s not a positive thing, but we do not regard the process as deadlocked.”
Speaking to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Aghajanian said Yerevan hopes that the Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders will meet in December after all.
A European diplomatic source said on Tuesday that the European Union keeps trying to arrange such a meeting.
Aliyev called off the December 7 summit amid mounting tensions along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border and the “line of contact” in and around Nagorno-Karabakh. Over the past week the conflicting sides have accused each other of violating the ceasefire there on a daily basis.
Aghajanian said that the increased ceasefire violations are not necessarily connected with the current state of the negotiating process. At the same time, he did not rule out the possibility of fresh Azerbaijani military attacks in the conflict zone.