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.
“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. “
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.
“Withdrawal from the EU isn’t an issue of a week or a month. As PM Cameron stated, it’s a rather time-consuming process, from which EU-Britain negotiations will last for months, probably, even for years. It’s noteworthy, that an order is enshrined in the EU Constitution, which reflects point 50, pursuant which: An EU country wishing to withdraw must notify the European Council of its intention to do so. Thus, Cameron seems not to hurry in implementing it, probably leaving that burden to the next PM.”
“Ceasefire should be maintained, to be maintained like it used to, Kasprzyk’s office, capabilities should be expanded and agreements should be reached around mechanisms,” Steinmeier said.
He uncovered purpose of his regional visit—to Yerevan, then to Baku and Tbilisi. According to him, OSCE primary issues, NK conflict settlement process are put forward. In the focus of Yerevan dialogue were those topics, and they’ll cover NK issue with RA president, as a primary issue.
Firstly, E.Nalbandian stated that after each negotiation the Azerbaijani side makes statements contradicting the topic of negotiations in Baku. He qualified it as false versions, at the same time hinting that it was expected from the Azerbaijani side.
