On Sunday, Serzh Sargsyan who was in the Kingdom of the Netherlands on a working visit met with OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and Andrzej Kasprzyk, the personal representative of the OSCE Chairman in office. Pursuant to presidential press release, the Co-Chairs discussed with the President of Armenia issues pertaining to the current situation of the peaceful resolution process of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the subsequent steps. In the framework of this visit, Serzh Sargsyan attended the Nuclear Security Summit held in The Hague on March 24-25.
The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair James Warlick, who had met with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan and assessed the meetings positive, posted on his Twitter page that Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev agreed to meet and the possible date of the meeting is specified.
For a moment, it seems that rumors were spread that the Co-Chairs are planning to organize a meeting on March 24-25, on the level of the presidents of Azerbaijan and Armenia under the Nuclear Security Summit in The Hague.
“We have had positive meetings with the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. A lasting peace is possible by working together”, wrote James Warlick on his Twitter page referring to the meeting with foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan. He also made another record, “I was corrected today: the conflict is between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan. Anyway, we wish a peaceful solution to all parties.” By the way, given correction of the American Co-Chair had caused a great discontent in Azerbaijan. Pursuant to Panorama.am, former Advisor for the President of Azerbaijan Vafa Guluzade, for example, has stated that Warlick should be “hurled out” from the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship.
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Yesterday, later, it became known that the OSCE Minsk Group American Co-Chair James Warlick has had separate meetings with the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in The Hague. “The principle agreement on the meeting between the presidents of two countries is reached. The dates of the meeting are still to be discussed”, wrote the Ambassador Warlick on his Twitter page hoping that if the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan will be open for constructive dialogue, they will be able to find the way to lasting peace.
In the context of Ukrainian events, earlier Warlick referring to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict noted that it is necessary to try to understand what lessons should be learned from the events in Ukraine for “the conflict between Armenia and Azerbaijan”.
In other words, keeping track to the chronology of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair’s records, one can conclude that the co-chairs, however, had a hope for organizing a meeting in the format of presidents. Followed by this reason they had left for the journey. However, the Co-Chair’s recent Twitter records left such an impression.
Anyway, yesterday, it appears that in the settlement process the interested parties will have to be limited with the following: the principle agreement is reached, and the dates for the meeting are still to be discussed…
The accented tension in Russian-Ukrainian crisis, also in the Russia-West relations can also affect the Karabakh settlement process, which does not record significant progress, a protracted process.
The activeness of the American Co-Chair in recent months proves that the official Washington is taking certain steps to assume primary role in the settlement process intending to enhance the reputation of Washington in the settlement process. And Warlick, it leaves the impression, does not want to hide his tactics to operate alone in the Minsk Group.
Today, under the West-Russia conflict, the official Moscow, which tends to give a “counterblow” to the West in all formats, in the context of imposing sanctions against Russia, can easily fail the intermediary steps towards the Karabakh settlement.
Commonly, the American intermediary’s records for several months in the Twitter have started to provide a kind of transparency to at least technical and organizational issues of the settlement process, which is an unprecedented phenomenon in the Karabakh settlement process. Warlick, with his Twitter transparency, seems to reveal the tiny uncertainties in the Karabakh settlement process, so far, certain complexities of organizing a meeting on the level of presidents after November.
Emma GABRIELYAN
