The meeting between Armenian and Azerbaijan Foreign Ministers, Edward Nalbandian and Elmar Mammadyarov, held in Paris, on January 24, in participation of co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group had only one sequel: co-chairs will visit the region in the first half of February. Ministerial-level meeting was not productive at all. And, there are several reasons for it. First, the co-chairs, according to the OSCE press release following the Paris meeting, will continue discussions with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in the region, while traditionally co-chairs came to the region to continue the implementation of the agreements reached. There isn’t any agreement at the moment. There was another agreement, which was not stated by any release or statement following the Paris meeting. The matter is about preparation for the meeting planned for February at the presidential level, which was actively discussed before January 24 meeting. Failing to refer to the meeting at the presidential level means that the meeting at least has a deferred status. In other words, Nalbandian-Mammadyarov meeting agenda, which was to discuss the planned meeting of the presidents, has been changed, moreover, completely. Another reason of the inefficient meeting is the situation maintained tension in the contact line, while negotiations are also underway to ensure relative stability. Armenia’s Foreign Minister drew the attention of the co-chairs of the Paris meeting at the rapid increase in tension and outrage of ceasefire by Azerbaijan at the border of Armenia and in the contact line of Artsakh, at the militant statements voiced by the highest level of Azerbaijan and territorial aspirations over Armenia, which contain provocative nature and have serious impact on negotiation process. Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairman, who is constantly participating in such meetings, has also presented Co-chairs the incident happened. As a result, although the co-chairs have expressed “deep concern” about the violations happened at the border line and in the frontier, the approach is still unaddressed and generic, which provides Azerbaijan the basis of reusing the same tool for applying provocations. The meeting was unproductive also due to misinformation spread by the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry that the basis of negotiations is restoration of territorial integrity. In Azerbaijan, negotiations are preferred to present based on appropriateness, in other words, Nalbandian-Mammadyarov meeting serve as an additional opportunity for presenting the public “news” stemming from own interests. On the eve of Foreign Ministers’ meeting, the OSCE Minsk Group American co-chair James Warlike, with his regular posting in Twitter page, had expressed hope of moving ahead to the meeting at the ministerial level in February. The reality is that no step was made, moreover, saying “backwards” will more accurately describe what happened. The Co-chair expects a move ahead, at the same time, people at the U.S. Department of State are unaware of the provocations, human losses on different sides of the contact line and unprecedented tension in the front line, unique response was another entry of the same Warlike in his Twitter page that violence and tension in the line jeopardize the negotiation efforts. The other co-chair country of the Minsk Group, Russia, has not given any assessments to the state-of-affairs after January 19. In co-chair country, France, the president’s and his wife’s civil strife is almost the only topic of general interest, and the Karabakh problem is just far away… It is clear that in any case everybody has its own interests. Azerbaijan, straining the situation and continuing the provocation, first of all, wants to show that the conflict may every minute turn into war. All those who are silent in this regard, if actually do not agree, encourage this approach of the Azerbaijani side, in silence. Hence, the provocations will continue.
Aghavni HARUTYUNYAN
