The meeting of Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev in Vienna was not negotiations. This is what founder of the Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs and politician Styopa Safaryan said during an April 1 press conference.

“You won’t find the word ‘negotiations’ in the statement of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs. It was a meeting. Azerbaijan refers to it as an initial phase of negotiations, but Armenia and the Co-Chairs view it as preparations for restarting negotiations. We can’t consider this a deep process for settlement of the conflict,” he said.

The politician is certain that this meeting provided the President of Azerbaijan with the opportunity to take a step back. “This meeting gave the President of Azerbaijan a chance to take a step back since the war that broke out three years ago didn’t improve Azerbaijan’s positions in the process of negotiations at all and put the negotiations in a deadlock.”

Safaryan doesn’t believe there are no mechanisms for investigation of incidents at all. “When there are talks about the lack of mechanisms for investigations of incidents or video cameras, this is not the case, and it is not by chance that several military experts state that Azerbaijan doesn’t have the opportunity for a surprise blitzkrieg. The mechanisms would simply give the Co-Chairs the opportunity to pinpoint the ones to blame and launch investigations.”