OSCE monitors along the Artsakh-Azerbaijan line-of-contact before the 2020 war
The role of the OSCE Minsk Group and its co-chairs, tasked with mediating a settlement to the Karabakh conflict, remains obscure after Russia insisted that the group had no further role to play in the matter, while the United States insisted that it is looking forward to the group’s continued work.
Days after Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov announced in Baku that because of posturing by the U.S. and France the Minsk Group had ceased its activities, the State Department’s Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs on Tuesday accused the Russian co-chair of rejecting an invitation to discuss the future of Karabakh.
“The US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group spoke with her colleagues today to discuss the future of Nagorno-Karabakh. Unfortunately, the Russian co-chair did not accept the invitation. We look forward to continuing the work of the Minsk Group,” said a message posted on the State Department-affiliated group’s Twitter page.
The message also reflected a position voiced by U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Karen Donfried, who during a visit to Armenia earlier this month said that the U.S. would be willing to work with Russia to find a settlement to the Karabakh conflict.
Lavrov’s statements last week echoed the sentiments prevalent among Azerbaijani leaders, especially the country’s president Ilham Aliyev, who has on numerous occasion deemed the Minsk Group co-chairs’ mission obsolete.
During a virtual press conference on Monday, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said he was surprised at Lavrov’s comments since he and President Vladimir Putin of Russia had issued a statement calling for the resumption of the Karabakh talks under the auspices of the OSCE Minks Group.
On Tuesday, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministry called on Yerevan “to not waste time on resuscitating” the OSCE Minsk Group.
In a statement, Azerbaijan’s foreign ministers said that Pashinyan’s statements about the normalization of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations “cast doubt on Yerevan’s ambitions to establish lasting peace in the region.”
“If Yerevan really wants peace, it should show political will and take concrete steps toward peace instead of wasting time on resuscitating a format, the effectiveness of which has always been low and whose members now openly admit its impossibility (of the OSCE Minsk Group).”
At the same time the ministry noted that “the statement by the Prime Minister (Nikol Pashinyan) that ‘opening of communications is beneficial for Armenia,’ signals a new approach from the Armenian leadership. It seems that Armenia needs time to accept the truth. We hope it will not take long for Armenia to realize the effectiveness of the ‘Zangezur Corridor,’ which has already become a reality.”
This portion of the statement is referring to a land corridor, proposed by Aliyev, that would connect mainland Azerbaijan with Nakhichevan—a matter that Yerevan has on many occasions unequivocally rejected.