‘I Was Wrong’: Armenian Analyst on His Expectations of Aliyev

Prior to the Mar. 5 meeting of the presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan in Sochi, Caucasus Institute Director Alexander Iskandaryan didn’t expect Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev would sign an agreement. “I was wrong,” confessed the analyst at a press conference Wednesday; however, he also said, such statements should be overestimated.

“Not only do [such announcements] not mean a resolution to the conflict, but also they don’t mean any serious move toward settling the conflict,” he said.

Iskandaryan sees two “interesting points” in the presidents’ statement. First, the exchange of POWs, which, according to the analyst, officially don’t exist in Armenia, and respectively, Azerbaijan’s president’s pledge to return Armenian POWs held captive in Azerbaijan. Secondly, though not as openly, a nod toward continuing the peaceful settlement of the conflict, and, “not obviously, but it appears that the parties must try to resolve the issue of snipers and that has to be done through OSCE mediation.”

“This factor should not be overestimated and the existence of this statement absolutely does not mean that the points in it will be implemented,” he said, adding that such statements have been made before.