In International Relations it is absolutely clear that the idea that two do not fight if one does not want to is absolute stupidity. If one is attacked, and does not fight, they run over him. You know it well Ukraine and he knows it too Armenia, aware that although this fight lasts decades it does not always lead to a successful outcome. The heads of government of 49 European states met this Thursday in Brussels and one of the main dishes on the agenda was scheduled to be a closed-door meeting between the Armenian Prime Minister, Nikol Pashinyan, and the Azerbaijani Prime Minister, Ilham Aliyev. . But this one, at the last moment, cracked. He didn’t want to sit down, he didn’t want the criticism, and he didn’t want to repeat the format of the previous times, a table with the neighbor and enemy of him with the pressure of Emmanuel Macron, Olaf Scholz and the president of the European Council, Charles Michel.
The absence was a great disappointment, but it allowed the Armenian prime minister to meet with the main community leaders, make lobby, scratch statements of support and some more money. “In these difficult times, the EU and Armenia stand shoulder to shoulder (…) We reiterate our condemnation of Azerbaijan’s military operation against the Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and reaffirm the need to respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of both Armenia and Azerbaijan,” the president of the Commission and Nikol Pashinyan, who call for “full respect for sovereignty and jurisdiction of the countries, as well as the principles of equality and reciprocity”.
The president of the European Council, Charles Michel, also spoke on the issue after meeting with Pashinyan, announcing an invitation to both parties for a meeting in Brussels at the end of this month to begin talks for a potential peace agreement. Michel, who has traveled to the area several times in recent years, already managed a meeting between the two countries and mandates at the last celebration of the European Political Community, in Moldova. And he hopes to be able to seat them again as soon as possible.
Meanwhile, he, together with Emmanuel Macron and Olaf Scholz, issued another statement to put pressure. “We are committed to further strengthening EU-Armenia relations,” say the community institutions, which have approved another 15 million euros “to address urgent socioeconomic needs and support the purchase of food and fuel.”
In their statement, the EU three underlined “their unwavering support for the independence, sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of Armenia’s borders” and “agreed on the need to provide additional humanitarian assistance as it faces the consequences of the recent mass displacement of Armenians from Karabakh”.