Following the European negotiation track on the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement, the American one will most likely face some problems too, Russian political scientist Sergei Markedonov said in a post on social media.

A meeting of the heads of the foreign ministries of Armenia and Azerbaijan and Armenia, Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov, was slated for November 20 in Washington. But 4 days before the expected negotiations, the Azerbaijani side said it would not participate in them.

“A certain trend is emerging. On October 25, EU Special Representative for the South Caucasus Toivo Klaar said that a Brussels meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan will not take place. Three weeks earlier, Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations did not take place in Granada on the sidelines of the summit of the European Political Community,” Markedonov said.

“Meanwhile, all these rejections have a common motive. In October, President Ilham Aliyev complained about France's pro-Armenian sympathies. In November, representatives of Baku stated that U.S. approaches are one-sided, which calls into question the mediating role of the United States. The thing is that Assistant Secretary of State James O'Brien said at a recent hearing in Congress that Washington had suspended military assistance to Azerbaijan and also canceled a number of important visits. The State Department representative explained all these steps by the American authorities by saying that there was no progress in the negotiations between Yerevan and Baku. Paraphrasing the classic: all quiet on the diplomatic front.”

O’Brien also emphasized that his country’s government warned Baku that tough actions against Armenia are unacceptable.

“Washington (like Paris) is now actively promoting this idea to the Armenian side. It must be said that the Armenian authorities perceive this rhetoric positively. And they even contrast it with the supposed absence of clear proposals from Moscow,” Markedonov added, claiming that “the security of Armenia today is guaranteed by the Russian Federation”.

“The quality of these guarantees can be discussed, but there are no real mechanisms from the West other than statements.”

“Previously, the foreign ministers of the two Caucasian states met in the US capital at the end of June 2023. But that meeting took place before the day and a half (aka the third) “Karabakh war”. And it reflected old realities that were radically changed two months ago. Today Baku feels like a winner. And it does not want to limit itself to the comments of external players. It doesn’t mean Azerbaijan is against Western mediation as such. Had Moscow said something that could have been perceived in Baku as pandering to the Armenian side, the reaction would have been similar to that heard in relation to a high-ranking State Department official. Azerbaijan is interested in all mediators accepting its version of the settlement as a basis. Actually, this line is being pushed through by Baku.”