Expert: Vienna meeting on Karabakh should be judged by concrete steps - COMMENT

Following the Vienna meeting on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, encouraging statements were made, however its results should be judged by concrete steps. If a number of important humanitarian issues are resolved, then it can be expected that this newest stage of the negotiation process will be successful.

Azerbaijani expert Ilgar Velizade told Report commenting on the meeting between Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in Vienna.

"Naturally, it is encouraging that the President of our country, following the meeting with the Prime Minister of Armenia in Vienna, made a number of encouraging statements, which at least indicates that the negotiation process is underway, it has gained a new start, as our President said," Velizade said.

Moreover, he recalled that the other side - the Armenian-is also involved in the negotiation process "recently has made several contradictory statements after a certain time following the results of the meetings and negotiations, which indicates that, unfortunately, there are different interpretations of the same process."

Ilgar Velizade

If concreate work is carried out in this direction and concreate results are achieved in the near future, then we can say that this meeting was productive.

İlqar Vəlizadə

Политолог Ильгар Велизаде:

"I would like to hope that this time the parties will still agree on the assessments of the meeting and the results that were achieved at this meeting," the political scientist said, adding that often ambiguous situation is observed when one of the parties makes an optimistic statement, while the other comes up with a few different theses after a certain time, which does not contribute to the idea that the negotiations as a whole are constructive and meaningful.

"The statement made by our President, as well as the statement of the co-chairs stipulate the need for specificity when the parties discuss specific topics and make decisions in accordance with the possibility of developing the negotiation process on these specific topics . Following the meeting in Vienna, it was decided to strengthen the work towards creating conditions for resolving humanitarian issues. Today one of the most important humanitarian issues on the conflict agenda is the exchange of prisoners of war. The Azerbaijani side proposes to implement the approach, which is characterized as “all for all”.

If concreate work is carried out in this direction and concreate results are achieved in the near future, then we can say that this meeting was productive. As the results of the meeting should be judged on specific cases and steps", -  I. Velizade said.

He expressed hope that issues related to the return of the two Azerbaijani hostages Dilgam Asgarov and Shahbaz Guliyev, who are in the Armenian captivity in Nagorno-Karabakh, will be resolved in this context.

"Of course, if this issue is resolved, we can expect that this new stage of the negotiation process will be successful. In any case, let's hope for this, since there will be some confirmation at the next meeting, that is called the "step by step" method, and other practical issues will be solved," the expert said.