Political scientist Hrant Melik-Shahnazaryan is not optimistic about the agreements reached at the Vienna meeting.
“There are no grounds to assert that the negotiations have come out of the deadlock. There are actually no guarantees that Azerbaijan will not continue its policy,” the political scientist said in an interview with Public Radio of Armenia.
Talks have not resumed, he said. “It was a working meeting, a preparatory stage for future negotiations.”
According to him, to mitigate the tension at the line of contact it’s first of all necessary to withdraw the troops from the frontline, but there have been no discussions on this so far.
“The implementation of mechanisms of the investigation of border incidents is also important, but there’s no clarity about the terms,” he said.
As for the superpowers’ assessment of the results of the meeting, the political scientist said “although we did not hear all we would like to, there is an impression that the position of the Armenian side is more comprehensible to the mediators.”
“They support the reinforcement of the 1994 agreement on ceasefire and the 1995 reinforcement of the ceasefire, which Azerbaijan was trying to denounce. Besides, they speak about confidence-building measures and monitoring mechanisms. All of these are proposals made by the Armenian side,” the political scientist said.
