12:28, 9 April 2022

Lavrov claims refusal of France and USA to work in OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh

The OSCE mission in Nagorno-Karabakh. Pierre Andrieu (France), an ambassador. October 27, 2015. Photo by Alvard Grigoryan for the "Caucasian Knot"

France and the United States intend to stop communicating with Russia on the settlement in Nagorno-Karabakh within the format of the Minsk Group of the OSCE (Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe), Sergey Lavrov, the head of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA), has stated.

The "Caucasian Knot" has reported that on April 6, Brussels hosted a meeting of Ilham Aliev, the Azerbaijani President, with Nikol Pashinyan, the Armenian Prime Minister. They agreed to set up, by the end of April, a border delimitation commission, and start drafting a peace agreement. The meeting was an attempt to avoid a conflict escalation, but the agreements reached will not guarantee an end to provocations at the border. Until the status of Karabakh is discussed under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group, there will be no peace in the region, Ovsep Khurshudyan, an Armenian political analyst, has noted.

The settlement process of the Karabakh conflict is based on the "Madrid principles" put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group back in 2007 in Madrid. The co-chairing countries of the Minsk Group are Russia, the USA and France. Azerbaijan accepts the "Madrid principles" with the provision that Karabakh can only be a part of Azerbaijan, while allowing its broad autonomy.

Armenian authorities hope that Russian peacemakers will return Azeri militaries to their initial positions and restore the status quo of Karabakh, Ararat Mirzoyan, the head of the Armenian MFA, has stated.

This article was originally published on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’ on April 8, 2022 at 03:53 pm MSK. To access the full text of the article, click here.

Source: Caucasian Knot