The Limited Times

Armenia-Azerbaijan: Peace is moving forward in small steps

5/26/2023, 5:00:23 PM

Highlights: The trilateral meeting in Moscow lasted only twenty minutes. It is the shortest ever held by Vladimir Putin with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The three men have been meeting regularly since the "second Nagorno-Karabakh war" in autumn 2020, won by Baku. The Kremlin hoped to get an agreement signed at least on the re-establishment of the railways between the two Republics of the South Caucasus.


DECRYPTION - Frustration prevailed after the meeting between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Moscow on Thursday.

The trilateral meeting in Moscow lasted only twenty minutes. It is the shortest ever held by Vladimir Putin with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliyev, and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan. The three men have been meeting regularly since the "second Nagorno-Karabakh war" in autumn 2020, won by Baku. At the end of this meeting, where the Kremlin hoped to get an agreement signed at least on the re-establishment of the railways between the two Republics of the South Caucasus, frustration could be seen on the faces of each other.

The Russian president tried to save face, claiming that only technical and terminology issues would remain to be settled to reopen communication channels in the region. But it was on the terminology that Mr. Aliyev relied to derail the discussion. At another meeting on May 25, the Azerbaijani president spoke of the need to open the "Zangezur corridor". Have been...

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