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Azerbaijan’s president Ilham Aliyev has cancelled plans to attend a summit in Spain this week, skipping an anticipated meeting with the Armenian premier there and further snubbing the EU and its peacemaking efforts in the Caucasus region.
Aliyev was expected to meet the Armenian prime minister Nikol Pashinyan on Thursday for the first time since Baku launched a blitz assault in September and retook the breakaway enclave of Nagorno-Karabakh, marking a historic defeat of its ethnic Armenian population, which has since fled the region.
The 24-hour war shook Armenia and raised questions about the future of the peace process between it and longtime enemy Azerbaijan, which had been taking place across multiple tracks in Moscow, Washington and Brussels.
Thursday’s meeting, which was due to take place at the European Political Community summit in Granada, was cancelled at the last minute, Armenia’s leader said.
“We’ve been confirming our visit to Granada until the very last moment, even today,” Pashinyan said. “We believed that there was a chance to sign a document of crucial significance. We were assessing that likelihood very high up until this morning.”
The Azerbaijani state press agency said on Wednesday that Aliyev had refused to attend the summit due to the “anti-Azerbaijani atmosphere” of the format. The talks were due to involve France, Germany and the EU.
“If the former trilateral format of EU-Azerbaijan-Armenia is revived, Azerbaijan may take part in the meeting,” the state news agency summarised. “Any format in which France participates is unacceptable for Azerbaijan.”
It listed Baku’s complaints towards France, including “pro-Armenian statements by French officials”, the visit to Armenia of France’s foreign minister and plans for further military co-operation.
Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan will also skip the summit, according to the government of Turkey, a close ally of Azerbaijan. Local media cited an alleged cold as the reason for the Turkish president’s change of plans.
An EU official confirmed that neither Aliyev nor Erdoğan would be present.
EU council president Charles Michel and the leaders of France and Germany were planning to use the Granada meeting to threaten Aliyev with potential retaliation — including possible sanctions or a downgrading of the EU’s trade and investment relationship with Azerbaijan — if the situation in Karabakh “deteriorates”, bloc diplomats said.
Over 100,000 Armenians, nearly the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh, have fled the enclave in recent weeks, for fear of retaliation from Azerbaijani authorities.
“I think this is perhaps the right moment to have a look at how we can offer practical support to Armenia in very tangible and telling ways,” a second EU official said.
