THE FORMAT OF OSCE MINSK GROUP WILL NOT CHANGE

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29 January 2009

Gagik Harutyunyan’s interview with IA REGNUM

The meeting of the president of Armenia Serj Sargsyan and the president
of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliev, which will take place on January 28 in
Zurich, does not bode any changes for the negotiation process on
the arrangement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and this is only
the next scheduled meeting in a row of such meetings. This was said
by the director of "Noravank" foundation Gagik Harutyunyan in the
interview with IA REGNUM.

In the expert’s opinion the regular meeting of the presidents of
Armenia and Azerbaijan, which was arranged by co-Chairman states
of OSCE Minsk group, can not be also regarded as the last one or
summarizing or the "swan song" for this format as many analysts
think. "I do not see any signs showing that any change of the Minsk
group may take place", – mentioned Gagik Harutyunyan. According
to him there are no reasons for France to leave that format. He
mentioned that currently the interest of France in the arrangement
of Nagorno-Karabakh increased and this corresponds to the current
policy of that country in South Caucasus.

It should be mentioned that recently there had been rumours spread
around political scientists about the change of the structure of the
OSCE Minsk group, and they did not exclude the possibility of the
withdrawal of France from that format. And as for the quit of the US
Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Matthew J. Bryza it was supposed
to be connected with the personnel reshuffle in the administration
of the new president of the United States Barak Obama.

Let us remind you that the negotiations on the Nagorno-Karabakh
conflict arrangement between the presidents of Armenia an Azerbaijan
will take place on January 28 in Zurich. The agreement of the meeting
was reached during the visit of OSCE Minsk group co-chairmen.