Epress.am News from Armenia
I don’t think the meetings organized by the Russian president which bring together Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan to discuss the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process will lead to any solutions, former Turkish envoy to the OSCE Minsk Group Canden Azer told Epress.am recently.
According to him, the Minsk Group in its current form is not “working diligently to find a solution” to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict:
“When it was first established in 1992, it had a different format, we were all included as members, and we were working very hard, but at that time the war situation, the occupation of the regions around Nagorno-Karabakh did not really make it possible to find a solution. Today under this co-chairmen formula most of the countries like Turkey are not involved and are not consulted; when the co-chairs visit the capitals, they talk with the leaders but it does not provide any green light, any hope for the future.”
The Turkish diplomat ascertains that it is not in the interest of Russia, one of the three current co-chair countries, to find a solution, because in the South Caucasus today, it’s only Armenia and Russia who don’t have problematic relations.
“Russia has also good relations with Azerbaijan, but between Azerbaijan and Russia there is no alince treaty: there are no Russian soldiers in Azerbaijan’s territory, whereas in Armenia there are two divisions or maybe more four. If a solution is found to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem, relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia will improve very rapidly,” he said.
The same holds true for Armenia-Turkey relations, he said. “Once this problem is solved, Turkish-Armenian relations will develop very quickly and so Russia will lose its role in the South Caucasus. That’s why I do not think that it is in Russia’s interests to find a solution to this problem.”
According to Azer, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict has to be resolved through the two Armenia and Azerbaijan leaders “getting together to talk this problem out.”
Asked who could do this, Azer said the US. “It can exert some pressure on Russia to leave Azerbaijan and Armenia alone so that they can find a solution.”