Is Azerbaijan Moving Ahead with Demarcating Its Borders With Armenia?

Armenia -On Nov. 26, 2021, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, Russian President Vladimir Putin and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian held a meeting in Sochi, Russia. The three leaders claimed the meeting

to be constructive and confirmed the agreement on a series of key issues. The main takeaway of the meeting was: all three leaders agreed to create, before the end of the year, mechanisms for delimitation and demarcation of the border between the two countries.

Indeed, this meant they had to share key issues as the South Caucasus region will soon be the scene of new projects and transport links.

The three-hour meeting also marked the first anniversary of a Moscow brokered peace deal that ended fighting in the region of Nagorno-Karabakh.

The Armenian PM Pashinian had reasons to point out that there are unresolved issues to be taken care of before anything else can be done.

For example, he feels that the situation on the border and in Nagorno-Karabakh is “not as stable as one would want it to be” and that “dozens of people on both sides” died in clashes over the past year. He called the situation on the border a “crisis.” Also, that the issue of prisoners of war, hostages and other persons held in captivity remained unresolved.

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that they will continue to take the required action to implement the Nov. 26 statement, he further added that, Azerbaijan is committed to full implementation of trilateral statements and open the communication channels, he also said that we are at the start of the delimitation process between the two countries and spoke from the position of normalization of relations based on international law.

Meanwhile, everyone is interested in peace to be restored so that “Everyone – including Russia as a neighbor – is interested in establishing the (transport) links.” It is therefore no wonder that Putin welcomed the foes’; planned meeting in Brussels on Dec. 15, saying he had discussed the matter with European Council President Charles Michel.

Putin also insisted to hold more direct contact to the two leaders.