Armenia to Continue its Efforts for Peaceful Settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh Conflict with MG Co- Chairs

Azerbaijan continues undertaking provocative measures on the contact line with Nagorno Karabakh and on the border with Armenia, using heavy artillery and keeping civilian facilities under fire. Baku refuses to create mechanisms investigating border incidents and withdrawing snipers from the front line. It also refuses to maintain the tripartite agreement of ceasefire for indefinite duration signed in May, 1994 and the agreement of the ceasefire reinforcement signed in February, 1995. Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Edward Nalbandian told about the aforesaid in an interview with “Kommersant”.

“The announcements of Baku about stalling the negotiations and meetings with the Co-chairs are regular attempts of blackmail. This is not the first time Azerbaijan demands to change the negotiation format, trying to transfer the negotiations on the conflict to other formats. The Co-chairs have often announced that such attempts are risky”, “Armenpress” reports Nalbandian mentioning.

The fact that Azerbaijan makes announcements criticizing the Co-chairs means that it enters into confrontation with the international community, particularly with the OSCE, since the OSCE is an organization based on consensus, the member states of which have authorized the Co-chairs with mediation mandate. This means that the Co-chairs act on behalf of all OSCE member states. The Co-chairs explicitly mention that Baku’s criticism addressed to their efforts is nothing more but absence of political will to reach a settlement. “But it goes without saying that the negotiations have no alternative, and we, together with the Co-chairs, continue our efforts for the exceptionally peaceful settlement of the conflict”, Armenian Foreign Minister mentioned.

Armenia shares the opinion of the Co-chairs that war is not a method of settlement. Though the Co-chairs try to take a neutral position as mediators, in the words of Nalbandian, they were forced to make a number of addressed announcements last year. They urged to preserve the ceasefire regime, condemning the use of heavy artillery and armored vehicles. The Co-chairs called on Azerbaijan to give consent to the proposal of creating mechanisms investigating ceasefire violation incidents on the contact line of Karabakh-Azerbaijan and the state border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which can become a tool preventing further escalation of the situation. They also called to end criticizing the Co-chairs and to reconfirm its commitment to peaceful conflict settlement. “It is clear that those calls by the Minsk Group Co-chairs are addressed to Azerbaijan as we have never criticized the Minsk Group. Baku is the one who does it”, Edward Nalbandian said.