Epress.am News from Armenia
The meeting of the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia in Sochi on Saturday cannot be considered a “usual” or regular meeting, because each meeting has (its own) clear purpose, said Yerevan-based political analyst Manvel Sargsyan, while speaking to journalists in the Armenian capital today.
According to him, the process was hanging in the air since the OSCE Summit in early Dec. 2010 in Astana. The presidents’ meetings have been reinstated, while the matter discussed in Sochi was not related to war prevention measures.
“The main agreements were related to increasing monitoring of the Line of Contact,” he said.
In turn, political analyst Sergei Minasyan said he noticed one unique feature of this particular meeting: after the Meindorf Declaration, this is the first, perhaps formal, time when Azerbaijan committed to showing restraint on the contact line.
Furthermore, Minasyan noted, following the Sochi meeting, a new format appeared, as evident in this sentence in the presidents’ Joint Declaration: “The presidents noted the importance of their regular contacts on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement and agreed to continue them in the present format and further to the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group.”
According to Minasyan, the Azerbaijani press are restrained in their response, and the seldom-heard statements of Azerbaijan’s analysts and politicians are called upon to show that nothing is happening.
“While Azerbaijan tries to use military rhetoric as an additional resource in negotiations,” he said.