Igor Khovayev, the special representative of the Russian Foreign Minister for Armenian-Azerbaijani relations, visited Baku, and a visit to Armenia is also planned, as the Russian Foreign Ministry spokesman noted, although he did not elaborate on the dates of his visit to Armenia. Khovayev met with Ilham Aliyev in Baku. The publicized discussion agenda is essentially “standard” and does not contain an answer to the question whether Khovayev arrived in the region with any new proposal or idea, or whether he was brought to the Caucasus by the Inner Hand incident, which seriously worried Russia in terms of the risk of destabilization in the Caucasus.
Any destabilization of the Caucasus will be a serious problem for Moscow, which has “thrown” its resources almost entirely in the direction of Ukraine. It is possible that Khovayev was sent to Baku to first of all understand how serious this problem is, after which the Russian side can think about the necessary steps to neutralize or manage it. At the session of the Armenian government, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that Azerbaijan refuses the proposals regarding the two options of the working methodology of border delimitation, which, according to him, gives reason to think that Baku is thus considering the possibility of solving the problems by military means and thus also the possibility of carrying out a wider military provocation towards Armenia. :
According to Nikol Pashinyan, in order to prevent such a development, Yerevan is actively involved in the negotiation process. Here, however, the question arises, what should be expected if Baku is not willing or at least not active in relation to this process, and furthermore, refuses to negotiate on Western platforms. At the same time, the initiators of the western platforms do not seem to be exerting great activity and effort to change Azerbaijan’s position regarding resuming negotiations on these platforms. It is possible that this effort has a so-called shadow manifestation and is not expressed publicly in order to be more effective.
US Assistant Secretary of State for European and Eurasian Affairs O’Bryan did not give a clear answer to the journalists’ question whether there could be a Pashinyan-Aliyev meeting at the annual international security conference in Munich, considering that it seems that both Pashinyan and Aliyev will participate in the conference. If he did not deny the possibility of a meeting, then we can assume that there is at least an attempt or intention to organize one. Nevertheless, we should consider the question of what will happen if there is no such meeting and the negotiation impasse on the Western platforms actually continues. In that case, is Yerevan ready to consider the possibility of a Moscow platform for negotiations, in the context of efforts to prevent the risk of military escalation?
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