Reestablishment of Armenia-Turkey diplomatic relations cannot proceed from Yerevan’s deconstructive stance on Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, said Sabine Freizer, Brussels-based Director of the Europe Program of International Crisis Group. Backpedaling of the process is caused by complexity of the issues, the parties have to agree on.

“The Armenia-Turkey rapprochement will actually encourage the Armenians to be more flexible in the negotiation with Azerbaijan,” Freizer told Azerbaijani Trend news agency.

The last meeting of Azerbaijani and Armenian Presidents did not inspire optimism, Azerbaijani FM Elmar Mammadyarov said. According to him, Armenian side raised the issues that were agreed on as far back as two-three years ago. Mammadyarov connects these actions with the recent developments in the region, that is Armenia-Turkey reconciliation.

"According to Freizer, the Armenians main argument for retaining control over the occupied territories is because they say “We need to have these territories as a security guarantee. We feel isolated and we need these territories to protect ourselves”, the article reads.
“Once the border with Turkey is open, that excuse will no longer be valid. They will have access to the rest of the world. And thus they will no longer be able to say that they need all these territories as security guarantees,” Freizer underlined, adding that the Karabakh status is one of the main unsettled issues. The reason why Azerbaijan and Armenia have been unable to agree to a kind of compromise is that they are still dealing with issues that extremely difficult to resolve.

“The two sides seem to have agreed on above mentioned. I would hope that the sides could sign a document that at least puts into writing these significant issues the parties agreed upon,” Freizer concluded.