Friday, November 2 2018 14:03

ArmInfo. Until internal political processes in Armenia are completed, it will hardly be  possible to work seriously, to consider concrete options for getting  out of this crisis and ensuring a full-fledged Nagorno-Karabakh  settlement.

This was announced on November 2 in Moscow during a press  conference with OSCE Secretary General Thomas Greminger by Russian  Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, commenting on the recent processes  around the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the agreement in Dushanbe,  as well as appeals from Yerevan to draw Artsakh to the negotiating  table.

He recalled that Russia is one of the three countries of the OSCE  Minsk Group co-chairs. According to him, it is in this format that  quite intensive efforts have been made in recent years to find ways  to unblock the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. "As far as I know, the  agreement of the Dushanbey meeting of the RA Prime Minister Nikol  Pashinyan and the President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev was that  contacts should be continued, and that the foreign ministers would  meet, and that, of course, both Armenia and Azerbaijan will work with  the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, we welcome such an agreement,  although of course we understand that as long as the internal  political processes in Armenia are not completed, such stormy ones  that we are seeing now are hardly possible to work seriously,  assmatrivat specific options out of the crisis, and to ensure full  functionality of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict ", - Lavrov expressed  his belief.

Although, according to the Russian minister, contacts are planned in  the process of preparing for these extraordinary parliamentary  elections, which are scheduled for December in Armenia, and the  co-chairs visit the region, meet with the leadership of Armenia and  Azerbaijan, with the foreign ministers. According to him, the  maintenance of such contacts, it is probably important that, as soon  as circumstances allow, to engage in a serious consideration of  issues related to the settlement.

"As for the announcements that Pashinyan made on several occasions  about the need to involve the Nagorno-Karabakh party in the  negotiations, we have already commented on these statements. This is  an issue that should be resolved by the parties to the conflict In  due time, the Karabakh representatives took part in the talks between  Baku and Yerevan, at the suggestion of the Armenian leadership, this  practice was changed and negotiations have been going on for many  years only between Armenia and Azerbaijan. Of course, we proceed from  the fact that Yerevan, in its negotiating positions, takes into  account the approaches of Karabakh, but in order to change the  current bilateral negotiation format, we need the consent of both  parties. As far as we know, there is no such agreement. And I would  not, frankly, put forward preliminary conditions in order to begin to  consider the essential issues of the Karabakh settlement, "Lavrov  concluded.