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With relative quiet continuing on the Armenian-Azerbaijani Line of Contact, bilateral negotiations were set to resume a full month after Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev held talks in Geneva, Switzerland, described as “constructive” by the mediators, according to an article published by EurasiaNet on 17 November.

The source stated while both presidents have made clear that they disagree on the key matter of Karabakh’s status, both agreed that it was necessary to reduce frontline tensions for a new round of talks.

“Since Russia-Georgia war of 2008, Azerbaijan re-focused its attention on Russia, seeking to sway President Putin’s position in its favor. While the Russian leadership approved the sale of billions of dollars of military equipment to Azerbaijan and Aliyev’s official rhetoric became aligned with Russia on the matter of Western “meddling,” Russia also sold advanced missile systems to Armenia and warned Azerbaijan against resuming large-scale hostilities.

Putin himself appears to believe that an attempt to shift the Karabakh status quo – either in Azerbaijan’s or Armenia’s favor – would hurt broader Russian interests and is not eager to do that. However, Russia might be interested in building up an alternative, regional states only format for conflict resolution, as it has been doing with Turkey and Iran on Syria, to illustrate the limits of Western influences.

With Washington’s and Brussels’ appetite for supporting former Soviet republics mostly lost, France and the United States have long acquiesced to Russia’s leadership role in Karabakh talks, and supplanting the Minsk Group with a regional “concert of powers”-type arrangement would help formalize that,” reads the article.

EurasiaNet reminded that in 2018 executive power transfers to a prime minister picked by parliamentary majority in Armenia, adding Azerbaijan is also expected to hold a presidential election in 2018 and a speculation is building that Aliyev could transfer the presidency to his spouse, Mehriban Aliyeva, who was made first vice president earlier this year.