Negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh without results, Moscow wants to regain control

High-ranking representatives of Azerbaijan and Armenia negotiated in Brussels on Nagorno-Karabakh (Upper Karabakh) without tangible results, and Russia offered to organize a summit in Moscow to regain control of the peace process.

That arid mountainous region of the Karabakh region, with an average altitude of 1.100 meters above sea level, with about 140.000 inhabitants, mostly inhabited by Armenians, but internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, is at the heart of the territorial conflict between Baku and Yerevan that has led to two wars.

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan met on Saturday in Brussels for new negotiations on a permanent solution to the decades-long conflict, under the auspices of the President of the European Council, Charles Michel.

The Armenian Foreign Ministry said the talks focused, among other things, on "the worsening humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh," and that the two sides "agreed to intensify work to resolve existing problems."

"Our discussions were once again honest, sincere and substantive," Michel said after the meeting.

He called on the two leaders "to take bold steps to ensure decisive and irreversible progress on the road to normalization."

"As a priority, the violence and harsh rhetoric must stop to create the conditions for peace talks," Michel said.

He announced his intention to organize a new meeting with Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan in Brussels after the summer, and a five-way discussion at the beginning of October in Granada, Spain, with French President Emmanuel Macron and German Chancellor Olaf Scholz, during the next summit of the European Political Community.

The United States of America (USA) already hosted meetings of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in early May and late June to resolve the conflict.

Washington on Wednesday called for the restoration of free movement on the Lachin Corridor, the only road connecting Armenia with the Nagorno-Karabakh enclave that was closed by Azerbaijan on Tuesday, and urged Baku and Yerevan to resume dialogue.

Pashinyan condemned the illegal "blockade" of Nagorno-Karabakh on Thursday, and several thousand people demonstrated in Stepanakert, the region's capital, on Friday, calling on Baku to reopen the road.

The engagement of Western countries in the region, especially the EU, is growing, while the traditional policeman of the Caucasus, Russia, mired in an invasion of Ukraine, seems to be losing its means of action.

In the fall of 2020, Moscow sponsored a ceasefire agreement at the end of a six-week war that saw the defeat of Armenian forces, forced to cede territories they had controlled for decades.

Russia has promised to deploy troops to guarantee free movement between Armenia and Karabakh, but Yerevan accuses Moscow of failing in this task.

On Saturday, Moscow, in an effort to regain control of the process, offered to host a meeting at the level of foreign ministers, suggesting that a future peace deal could be signed in Moscow.

Russia is ready to "hold a trilateral meeting of foreign ministers in Moscow in the near future," according to a press release from the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Moscow also offers to host a "Russia-Azerbaijan-Armenia summit in order to sign the relevant (peace) treaty" when the time comes.

But for now, tensions have escalated.

Azerbaijan's Defense Ministry said on Saturday that Armenian separatists are creating "radio jamming targeting the GPS navigation systems of domestic and foreign airlines" whose planes fly over Azerbaijan.

"These incidents represent a serious threat to the safety of aviation," the Ministry said in a statement.

It says that on Thursday, July 13, the "Azerbaijan Airlines" plane that was flying to the Fizuli locality, in Nagorno-Karabakh, had its GPS system fail due to alleged interference.

Armenian separatist authorities have rejected the accusations, calling them "absolute lies".

Since the conflict in 2020, connections between Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia have been possible only through one route, the Lachin Corridor.

That route was closed on Tuesday by Azerbaijan due to alleged "smuggling" by the Armenian branch of the Red Cross, which was still able to restart medical transport from Nagorno-Karabakh on Friday.

For several months now, Yerevan has been fearing a serious humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh, due to increasingly difficult access conditions.