By Trend

Big progress was achieved during the negotiations in Brussels, Director of the Russian Institute of Political Studies, analyst Sergey Markov told Trend.

Markov made the remark commenting on the agreements reached following the meeting in the Belgian capital between President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev and Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, which was held with the mediation and participation of the President of the Council of the European Union (EU) Charles Michel.

The analyst noted that there are several important aspects of the negotiations between Azerbaijan and Armenia in Brussels.

"First, there were serious, substantive negotiations, which lasted more than four hours. Serious step forward was made during them," he said. "Firstly, the parties decided to create a Joint Border Commission which is expected to be able to speed up work on the delimitation and demarcation of the border [between the two countries]. So far, Armenia largely disrupted this work, but now it has expressed its readiness to move in this direction."

"Secondly, the desire of both parties to seriously engage in the preparation of a future peace treaty was expressed. The peace agreement should fix the main thing - the mutual recognition of borders, that is, the recognition by Armenia that Karabakh is Azerbaijan," Markov further said.

The analyst stressed that the European Union can provide assistance in clearing mines from the Azerbaijani territories liberated from Armenian occupation [in the 2020 Second Karabakh War].

"The problem of mines is a huge problem for the restoration of the liberated territories. They are heavily mined. Armenia didn’t hand over all the maps of minefields, and those which were provided are 75 percent useless," he also noted.

"If the European Union, with its vast experience in mine-clearing of large territories, could help in this issue, this would be a very serious step forward," added Markov.