Yerevan November 2
Marianna Mkrtchyan. Until internal political processes in Armenia are completed, it will hardly be possible to work seriously, to consider concrete options for getting out of this crisis and ensuring a full-fledged Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. This was announced on November 2 in Moscow during a press conference with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger by Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, commenting on the recent processes around the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the agreement in Dushanbe, as well as appeals from Yerevan to draw Artsakh to the negotiating table.
He recalled that Russia is one of the three countries of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. According to him, it is in this format that quite intensive efforts have been made in recent years to find ways to unblock the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "As far as I know, the agreement of the Dushanbey meeting of the RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was that contacts should be continued, and that the foreign ministers would meet, and that, of course, both Armenia and Azerbaijan will work with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, we welcome such an agreement, although of course we understand that as long as the internal political processes in Armenia are not completed, such stormy ones that we are seeing now are hardly possible to work seriously, assmatrivat specific options out of the crisis, and to ensure full functionality of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict ", – Lavrov expressed his belief.
Although, according to the Russian minister, contacts are planned in the process of preparing for these extraordinary parliamentary elections, which are scheduled for December in Armenia, and the co-chairs visit the region, meet with the leadership of Armenia and Azerbaijan, with the foreign ministers. According to him, the maintenance of such contacts, it is probably important that, as soon as circumstances allow, to engage in a serious consideration of issues related to the settlement.
"As for the announcements that Pashinyan made on several occasions about the need to involve the Nagorno-Karabakh party in the negotiations, we have already commented on these statements. This is an issue that should be resolved by the parties to the conflict In due time, the Karabakh representatives took part in the talks between Baku and Yerevan, at the suggestion of the Armenian leadership, this practice was changed and negotiations have been going on for many years only between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Of course, we proceed from the fact that Yerevan, in its negotiating positions, takes into account the approaches of Karabakh, but in order to change the current bilateral negotiation format, we need the consent of both parties. As far as we know, there is no such agreement. And I would not, frankly, put forward preliminary conditions in order to begin to consider the essential issues of the Karabakh settlement, "Lavrov concluded.