(MENAFN- Trend News Agency) BAKU, Azerbaijan, April 22. Azerbaijan, underthe leadership of President, Supreme Commander-in-Chief IlhamAliyev, has achieved the return of four villages in the Gazakhdistrict previously occupied by Armenia without firing a shot. Theprocess, which the head of state started in 2020 and in connectionwith which intensive work was carried out, apparently, has foundits logical conclusion.
Commenting on the new security configuration in the region toTrend , Director ofthe Institute of Applied Ethnopolitical Studies, Kazakh politicalscientist Talgat Kaliyev, noted that the next round ofAzerbaijani-Armenian negotiations, which ended with the signing ofseveral agreements, can be regarded as a good movement towards afull peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
"At the moment, Yerevan is showing enough political maturity andwisdom, as stabilizing the situation in the South Caucasus andachieving peace between Armenia and its closest neighbors,Azerbaijan and Türkiye will allow Yerevan, first of all, to gainpositive economic prospects, establish good trade relations, and,among other things, get a good profit from the development of theTrans-Caspian international transport route," he said.
According to Kaliyev, Yerevan will move in this direction.
"Especially since now Kazakhstan has also joined this process asa negotiator at the level of President Kassym-Jomart Tokayev, whomade a diplomatic trip to both Baku and Yerevan and met with bothleaders," the political scientist added.
In turn, Kazakh political scientist and professor of theDepartment of Media Communication and History of Kazakhstan, MUITSaken Mukan, told Trend that the agreement of the parties and thereturn of Azerbaijani villages did not come as a surprise tohim.
"Since recently, the activation in the normalization ofrelations between the two countries has been quite rapid, which hasits long-term perspective. The withdrawal of Russian peacekeepersfrom the territory of Azerbaijan, as well as the "strained"Armenian-Russian relations to date, give Yerevan grounds to proceedwith its national interests in the name of involvement in futureregional economic projects," he emphasized.
According to him, Armenia can have sufficient dividends fromregional economic projects with access to the Chinese marketthrough Azerbaijan and Kazakhstan, but not as it is now throughTurkmenistan, which is quite costly and bureaucratic.
Saken Mukan mentioned that it is too early to speculate on thefuture of the peace agreement at this stage, but positive processesin this direction are observed nowadays.
"I believe that the President of Kazakhstan Kassym-JomartTokayev did not just pay an official visit to Yerevan. In myopinion, the purpose of the visit was to "prove" the groundwork forestablishing peace and reaching agreements between the twocountries. The President of Kazakhstan also offered the Kazakhplatform for negotiations," he said.
To note, on April 19, 2024, the 8th meeting of the StateCommission on the Delimitation of the State Border between theRepublic of Azerbaijan and the Republic of Armenia and theCommission on the Matters of Delimitation of the State Border andBorder Security between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic ofAzerbaijan took place under the chairmanship of Shahin Mustafayev,the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic of Azerbaijan, and MherGrigoryan, the Deputy Prime Minister of the Republic ofArmenia.
At the initial stage of the delimitation process, the sidestentatively agreed on the passage of certain segments of the borderline directly between the settlements of Baganis (RA) – BaganysAyrim (AR), Voskepar (RA) – Ashagy Askipara (AR), Kirants (RA) –Kheyrimli (AR), and Berkaber (RA) - Gyzylhajily (AR) to bring themin line with the legally justified inter-republican border thatexisted within the Soviet Union at the time of its collapse.
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