Pashinyan-Aliyev-Putin Trilateral Meeting: What to Expect

The newspaper "Zhoghovurd" reports: "Today in Sochi, a trilateral meeting between Pashinyan, Aliyev, and Putin will take place. However, ahead of the meeting, negotiations are ongoing behind closed doors between the two sides under the leadership of Moscow. For instance, the day before, Russian President Vladimir Putin discussed the situation around Nagorno-Karabakh with Charles Michel, the President of the European Council.

According to a message released by the Kremlin, Putin presented the progress of the trilateral agreements, addressing the restoration of economic and transport ties in the South Caucasus, stating that these issues are expected to be discussed at today’s trilateral meeting in Sochi. The day before, there was also a phone conversation between the foreign ministers of Russia and Armenia. Sergey Lavrov and Ararat Mirzoyan discussed the implementation of agreements made on November 9 and January 11.

Also interesting is the Armenian-Turkish agenda. Yerevan has informed Moscow that it is ready to start the Armenian-Turkish normalization process unconditionally, although Ankara has been presenting its preconditions to Yerevan at the highest level in recent months.

Russian political scientist Alexander Skakov stated in an interview with "Zhoghovurd" that no drastic changes are expected after the meeting. He noted that the situation in the region, humanitarian issues, and the vision for solving major problems will primarily be discussed during the meeting. "There will be no breakthrough, as Turkey and Azerbaijan continuously speak in terms of preconditions. They are not moving into a constructive field and are trying to extract maximum political gains from the situation," he stated. According to him, the only issue that might reach some level of agreement is the question of demarcation and delimitation, which could begin after this meeting. Details can be found in today’s issue of the newspaper."