“Iran is one of those few countries of he world, which pursues its own policy. They can be counted on fingers. No matter how strange it may seem, Iran is included in them. It survived severe sanctions, which closed world energy market for it. Iran, surely, makes use of Russia, it rather actively used it in the period of sanctions, however, Russia also reckons on Iran. It’s a mutually beneficial political game. Sometimes Iran is a partner, sometimes—an ally, and sometimes—a companion, i.e. relations between Russia and Iran are multilayer.”

Neil Macfarlane, professor of International Relations at Oxford University, specialist on Russia and the South Caucasus, PhD in political science, positively assessed the process by the MG towards making presidential meeting frequent, launched after the April war. In his words, currently the Russian side seemingly puts forward its separate plans in Nagorno-Karabakh, attempting to move towards the direction of cooperation with the USA and France, with the perspective of settling wider relations with the West.

Germany as an OSCE chairing country “seeks to settle the Nagorno Karabakh conflict,” Frank-Walter Steinmeier, German Federal Minister for Foreign Affairs, said to journalists today in Tbilisi.

“We highly appreciate the efforts of all the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries aimed at organizing meetings at the highest level. However, at least it is improper, when not France – the inviting side, but one of the invitees voices the French proposal which is still under consideration.”

Jafarov detailed that it refers Akna (Aghdam), Varanda (Fizuli) and Mekhakavan (Jabrail) regions. Jafarov considers that Azerbaijan is ready to become a member of Eurasian Economic Union for the return of those territories and by that enter into the “game.”

“NATO stressed cooperation with all partners, and I’m sure, Armenia has its say there, that’s why the higher the level of Armenia’s participation will be, from the higher level its say will be reached. In particular, after the April war, I think, we have something to say, for instance, how come after the war people are being educated in American military universities, who then commit crime against humanity, by cutting hands, heads, defaming corpses and obtaining the title of a national hero?”

“Germany intends to record some result by the end of its presidency and currently all OSCE powers are focused on extinguishing NK conflict fire, as the conflict is rather serious, it resumed in April, and there is a threat, that it may repeat again. In Germany great importance is attached to weakening of tension on NK conflict zone. During conferences, participants of which is Steinmeier as well as his diplomats, the conflict is being observed as the most sharpened conflict in Europe, thus Steinmeier’s efforts are quite understandable and the fact, that it should be on hot points attempting to find ways for agreement.”

“Today the meeting of the president of Artsakh and Steinmeier was held in Yerevan and different issues have been discussed towards NK conflict settlement. Surely, main stress was on developing of mechanisms, maintenance of peace. Time will show whether it’ll succeed or not, however, there is no any other variant—conflict settlement process should centralize on development and installation of these very mechanisms. It’ll be impossible to settle the conflict without it. “

“After the April clashes, we need compromise and proposals more than before. We want the conflict settled in a constructive way. To settle the conflict, we have to use the presidents’ opportunities to meet, and hold serious discussions for restoration and maintenance of the ceasefire,” he said.

This curious story of tomatoes, in fact, is not the concern of the Ministry of Agriculture, but is a deeper systemic issue. If people in Armenia consider quite realistic that a few thousand of tons of tomatoes may be imported from Turkey to Armenia, this speaks of zero-level trust towards the customs system.