Bryza: EU stepping into vacuum left by de-facto demise of OSCE MG

President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev has made it very clear since the end of the second Karabakh war that he is in favor of negotiating a peace agreement with Armenia, which will settle the conflict of two countries, Matthew Bryza, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, former US Ambassador to Azerbaijan, and international expert, told Report.

He was commenting on the meeting of the president of Azerbaijan, the prime minister of Armenia and the head of the EU Council in Brussels.

“Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan has also wanted to move in that direction but he has been unable to do so because of political opposition in Armenia which still has unattainable dream of retaking Azerbaijan’s territories that Armenia had previously occupied. That dream is dead,” Bryza said.

He also noted that the Statement of European Council President Charles Michel following the Second Trilateral Meeting with President Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, which underscores how both sides instructed their Foreign Ministers to work on a peace agreement, is a really good sign and the countries are definitely getting closer to signing the peace agreement.

Commenting on the fact that there’s no mention of OSCE Minsk Group in the statement, Bryza noted that lack of the any mention of OSCE MG in the statement is indeed telling that now the EU is stepping into the vacuum left by the “de-facto demise of the OSCE MG”.

Bryza also expressed hope that Azerbaijan and Armenia will be able to reach the agreements on the delimitation of borders during the meeting scheduled for the end of April.

“Negotiating of the demarcating will take time. This agreement will be successful I just don’t know how long it will take time,” he added.