In response to Azerbaijani journalist’s question of whether Russia will interfere in Azerbaijan’s “internal affairs” if the latter “launches anti-terrorist operations in Nagorno-Karabakh and cleanses the territory from terroristic and other criminal elements”, Sergey Lavrov responded, “It is exclusively not a matter of Azerbaijan’s internal affairs. There are a full set of steps to be taken on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and primarily the ones that are adopted by the UN Security Council at the fieriest moment of the conflict and demanded a ceasefire. If you are interested, you can find in the archives how these requirements about immediate ceasefire were maintained, who has preserved it and who has not.”
Interpreting Lavrov’s statements, Mr. Minasyan said, “Actually, it can be interpreted as the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair country’s Foreign Minister’s statement that contains a more comprehensive analysis of the Minsk Group and the Madrid principles. It is important that Lavrov as well as all co-chairs, in one way or another, have repeatedly mentioned that the elements are connected to each other, and be it an element of territories, refugees or anything else, it can be resolved only after the final status of Karabakh is resolved.”
According to Sergey Minasyan, Lavrov once again reported the fact that Russia and the Minsk Group co-chairs are against the efforts of solving the conflict in militarily. Addressing RF Foreign Minister’s being against to extradition of blogger Alexander Lapshin detained in Minsk to Azerbaijan, Sergey Minasyan described it as follows: “Sergey Lavrov’s statement shocked Azerbaijan and the public-media field.”
