On October 31, negotiations between the heads of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan on Nagorno-Karabakh took place in Sochi. First, Putin held bilateral meetings with Aliyev and Pashinyan, then everyone met in a trilateral format.
As experts note, the Sochi meetings did not add anything new to the negotiation process.
“Putin called the meeting in Sochi with Aliyev and Pashinyan “useful.” This means that it was not successful,” Arkady Dubnov comments in his Telegram channel. -- From the agreed statement following the results, key provisions were withdrawn that could indicate a rapprochement of the positions of Baku and Yerevan on the path to a peace treaty, which had already been promised to be concluded by the end of the year.
Pashinyan was unable to obtain from Putin a principled political assessment of the actions of Azerbaijan, whose troops, as Yerevan believes, today control part of the territory of Armenia. Aliyev was unable to insist on accepting his five-point position, which would have become the basis for a compromise.
There is no evidence that it has been possible to even bring positions closer together on the issue of transport corridors through Armenia.
The only thing that both sides were asked to emphasize was the positive role of Russian peacekeepers and Putin himself, who is striving to achieve a peaceful solution to the conflict... In such a situation, it is reasonable to assume that Baku and Yerevan, having said “thank you” to Putin, will again seek mediation in the West. Or shots will ring out again.”