Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov opens the working week with a busy program of a two-day visit to Baku, timed to coincide with the first anniversary of the bilateral declaration on allied cooperation, which was signed on February 22 last year. The head of the Russian diplomatic mission is expected to be received by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and meet with Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov.
As announced by the official representative of the Russian foreign ministry Maria Zakharova, during his meetings with the leadership of the republic the minister will review the full range of bilateral issues, current regional and international issues, as well as pay special attention to the implementation of the trilateral agreements of the leaders of Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia. On the second day of the visit, Lavrov will address a plenary session of the Russia-Azerbaijan expert council.
Reciprocal questions
Although Bayramov visited Moscow twice last December, and the phone conversations between the ministers are regular, the current visit of Lavrov seems to be overdue. A week earlier, the stalled peace treaty talks between Baku and Yerevan had been relaunched on the sidelines of the Munich Security Conference. Mediated by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Aliyev and Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan met February 18 to discuss the draft agreement.
During the meeting, Pashinyan reiterated Armenia's commitment to achieving an agreement that will truly guarantee long-term peace and stability in the region, the press service of the Armenian cabinet reported. For his part, Aliyev suggested creating checkpoints on the border with Armenia and said that Baku is studying Yerevan's response to the draft agreement. The leadership of the republic will probably inform Lavrov about the results of the last meeting and will be interested in the Russian assessments.
It is possible that the sides will consider the possibility of further development of the Armenian-Azerbaijani dialogue on the normalization of relations on the Moscow platform. Earlier Lavrov confirmed the readiness of the Russian side to organize in Moscow a meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian foreign ministers, which was not held at the scheduled time in late December due to Yerevan's decision to postpone it. The reason was the aggravation of the situation around the Lachin corridor.
Mediator with a forgery
In the context of promoting the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin told TASS earlier that the main thing in the relevant process is to avoid duplication and competition in the mediation efforts. The Russian foreign ministry has already witnessed such dishonesty in the activities of the European Union, which launched its civil mission in Armenia on February 20 claiming to be a mediator. The mandate of the corresponding mission is for two years and provides for permanent patrols on the border with Azerbaijan and reports to Brussels about the situation "on the ground."
Zakharova said that Moscow sees the EU's steps as "exclusively geopolitical, far from the interests of the real normalization of relations in Transcaucasia." According to her, Brussels is doing its best in order to "squeeze Russia out of the region and to weaken its historic role as the main guarantor of security."
Moreover, Baku's publicly expressed negative assessments of the initiative are also ignored. The EU's role in stabilizing the South Caucasus is also likely to become a topic of talks between Russian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers.
Prospective contacts
Another topic that is likely to be on the agenda of Lavrov's meetings in Baku is the intensification of work in the "3+3" format, which involves the three countries in the South Caucasus (Azerbaijan, Armenia and Georgia), as well as the region's three closest neighbors (Russia, Iran and Turkey). During Bayramov's visits to Moscow in December, the Russian minister reported about the elaboration of a meeting in this format at the ministerial level. It is possible that in Baku the time and place of the relevant contacts will be clarified. Moreover, during Lavrov's visit some progress on the bilateral track may be registered. The results of the first year of cooperation between Moscow and Baku in the new status, marked by the signing of a bilateral declaration on allied cooperation by the presidents of the two countries, will probably be noted.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Russian Foreign Ministry
Based on materials from TASS