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Rena Murshud

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The summit, attended by some 50 European leaders, dozens of aides, and legions of journalists, was a fiasco. The meeting failed to make any significant progress in resolving the conflicts on the doorstep of Europe or any other regional problem, Azernews reports.

The third meeting of Emmanuel Macron's European Political Community project was presented by advisers as an opportunity to achieve peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, reduce tensions in the Balkans and have a strategic conversation about the security of the continent.

While leaders rallied around Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, who was in Granada to drum up European support for Ukraine amid concerns about US aid, they failed to make progress in other conflicts due to the absence of key players.

Participants' hopes of taking action to resolve the humanitarian crisis in so-called "Nagorno-Karabakh" were dashed when Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan refused to participate in the meeting. But the leaders were so hoping to hold the first meeting between Ilham Aliyev and Nikol Pashinyan since Azerbaijan won a great victory over the Armenian terror, which led to the exodus of pro-separatist elements from Garabagh.

It is worth noting that the reason for President Ilham Aliyev’s refusal to attend the meeting is the destructive position of France, as well as disagreements between Paris and Berlin regarding Turkiye’s participation in the meeting.

It should be noted that French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna, who recently visited Yerevan, again found herself in the spotlight for her anti-Azerbaijani statements.

Attempts to ease tensions between Kosovo and Serbia are equally futile. Kosovo President Vjosa Osmani refused to negotiate with his Serbian counterpart Aleksandar Vucic unless sanctions were applied against Belgrade.

The sense of futility of the informal summit reached its peak when the host country, Spain, canceled at the last minute a planned press conference, an expected summit event for some 700 journalists. It was intended to include announcements and formally mark the transfer of leadership of the European Political Community from Spain to the United Kingdom.

The leaders' lack of enthusiasm for the summit was evident from the start of the day, with many invitees not bothering to stop and exchange thoughts with the waiting crowd of journalists. Giorgia Meloni from Italy walked past the journalists, talking on her cell phone.

Neither German Chancellor Olaf Scholz nor British President Rishi Sunak spoke to the press. Emmanuel Macron, whose idea was to create a European political community, also had nothing to say on the way to the meeting.

This is what it means that the absence of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Turkiye led to nothing, despite the fact that the leaders of many countries were present at the meeting. This is what the strength of the Turkic countries means.

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Rena Murshud is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow her on Twitter: @RenaTagiyeva

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