Today, a trilateral meeting will take place between the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, the US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and the President of the European Commission Ursula von der Leyen in Brussels.
According to the Armenian Cabinet of Ministers, together with Pashinyan, the negotiations will be attended by Deputy Prime Minister Tigran Khachatryan, Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan with Deputy Vahan Kostanyan, as well as the ambassadors of Armenia to Belgium and the USA and several advisors. The Prime Minister is accompanied on the trip by his wife Anna Hakobyan.
What will Pashinyan, Blinken and von der Leyen talk about?
Kostanyan revealed information about the agenda of the meeting the day before. According to him, economic and humanitarian topics will be discussed first of all. The Deputy Minister also clarified that Western countries did not impose conditions on Yerevan to refuse cooperation with the EAEU and the CSTO.
Shortly before this, EU Foreign Affairs Representative Peter Stano made a similar statement. He denied information that "security guarantees" for Armenia and the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement would be discussed, explaining that the negotiations would focus on bilateral cooperation and the economic stability of Armenia.
In the initial message about the meeting, which came from Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan, the agenda was characterized in approximately the same way:
"At it [the meeting] it is planned to discuss ways of trilateral cooperation that will contribute to the development of Armenia. The event is also aimed at strengthening Armenia's resilience"
Azerbaijan's position
It should be noted that ahead of the negotiations, Blinken and von der Leyen called (separately) Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. During the talks, bilateral cooperation between Baku and Washington and Brussels, as well as today's trilateral meeting, were discussed. The Head of the Azerbaijani state expressed the position of the Azerbaijani side on this meeting and pointed out the importance of regional inclusivity.
Russia and Armenia
Shortly before the negotiations, Pashinyan once again announced Yerevan's current position regarding Moscow, saying that the Russian side, unlike the Armenian side, was not fulfilling its obligations. According to him, Armenia continues to wait for the Russian Federation to do what it is obliged to do.
On the part of Moscow, Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov made a statement that Armenia was deliberately going to collapse relations with Russia. Lavrov emphasized that such a development of events contradicts the interests of the Armenian people: the West pursues only the goals of destabilizing the situation in the Caucasus and making it a zone of its dominance.
