ArmInfo.Tensions between the US and Russia significantly affect the Karabakh settlement process, the leader of the Constructive Party of Armenia, analyst Andrias Ghukasyan, expressed such an opinion ArmInfo.
Since 1992, the OSCE Minsk Group, represented by the co-chairs from Russia, the United States and France, has been involved in resolving the Karabakh conflict. Since the signing of the trilateral agreement on the establishment of a truce between the parties to the Karabakh conflict, almost a quarter of a century has passed. And all these years, surges of murders on the Line of Contact have been interspersed with negotiations towards peace. However, since the end of last year, the killings have practically stopped, and the OSCE MG mediators, Baku and Yerevan, have started talking about the need to prepare the parties to the conflict for peace.
"In my opinion, the significant changes in the relations between the two superpowers are the main feature of the current stage of settlement. From the previously existing mutual understanding on certain issues, Washington and Moscow returned to the Cold War period. This is extremely urgent, since today's withdrawal of the parties from Intermediate-Range Nuclear Forces (INF) Treaty signed in 1987- is a step towards regular review of the legal framework of documents signed within the framework of the OSCE ", he stressed.
At the same time, the analyst states that there are certain changes in the situation around Karabakh. Yerevan and Baku still disagree with the settlement options proposed by the mediators from the OSCE Minsk Group. However, if earlier proposals on the implementation of measures to achieve a final peace, for quite a long time were rejected by Azerbaijan, today Yerevan is taking on this role.
"Only the legitimacy of the incumbent Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan allows him to boldly refuse to the mediators from the Minsk Group on part of the proposals that are not based on the interests of the two Armenian republics. Meanwhile, his predecessor Serzh Sargsyan did not possess this legitimacy, which was expressed in the softer position of Armenian negotiators on Karabakh. Thus, the preservation of the status quo is now the prerogative of Pashinyan, not Aliyev, " Ghukasyan summed up.
Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Elmar Mammadyarov met 5 times in less than a year. At the same time, coming to power, the new Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan managed to meet with Ilham Aliyev three times, moreover, all three meetings were unofficial.