Washington leaves while Moscow returns in the “new” negotiation phase between Armenia and Azerbaijan

Azerbaijan outlined its priorities in the peace process with Armenia in the foreseeable future. As expected, Baku is not in a hurry to conclude peace, EADaily writes.

“The Armenian side did not respond on time to our proposals regarding the text of the peace treaty. And so, in this context, we experience a delayed process. Probably, a new process will begin in December,” Hikmet Hajiyev, Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan, said.
As the columnist notes, the word “new” voiced by Aliyev’s aide is actually used for the first time by Azerbaijani officials and may be related to recent developments outside the South Caucasus.

The victory of Donald Trump in the U.S. presidential elections will probably remove the region from the list of priorities of the United States. Accordingly, the current U.S. pressure on Baku to push it to make peace with Yerevan as soon as possible will be reduced. Last month, outgoing U.S. President Joe Biden sent messages to President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, urging them to complete the negotiations and conclude peace by the end of this year. The request was made before the crushing defeat of the Democrats in the Nov. 5 elections, when they “lost” both the White House and both houses of Congress. In the light of the new circumstances, Aliyev no longer has any special reason to follow the call of Biden, whom few even in Washington take into account.

Washington, after the official return of Trump to the White House and the start of his time in office, appears to be left out of the list of places where the peace treaty between the two South Caucasus republics can be finalized.

Perhaps it was Kazan that laid the first stone in the “new process” and became the starting point for Armenia and Azerbaijan to conduct direct negotiations at all levels of interstate communication.