Lawmaker: Lavrov has left for Baku to persuade Ilham Aliyev to implement Vienna agreements

 Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov has most likely left for Baku to persuade Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev to implement the agreements reached during the Vienna and St. Petersburg meetings with his Armenian counterpart Serzh Sargsyan, Armenian lawmaker Tevan Poghosyan said at today's press conference in Yerevan. 

He said that at the moment Baku ignores the agreements and makes statements that run counter to the stand of the Armenian side and the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs. "Azerbaijan ignores the agreements.  Otherwise, we would already know about expansion of the Office of the OSCE CiO Personal Representative or about introduction of investigative mechanisms," he said.  Poghosyan thinks it is senseless to organize another meeting James Warlick was previously speaking about. "Sargsyan met with US Secretary of State John Kerry, who pointed out the need to implement the agreements and is responsible for these words. Lavrov has left for Baku to talk to Aliyev, because the Russian President is also responsible for the results of the St. Petersburg meeting," Poghosyan said, noting that one should expect no progress in the peace process, because the stands of Yerevan and Baku are different.   

For his part, Stepan Grigoryan, Head of the Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation, said that US Co-Chair of the OSCE Minsk Group James Warlick takes an inadequate view of the reality. "Either it is an American tradition to be optimistic or he is making delusional remarks," he said. Grigoryan also pointed out the big difference between the meetings in Vienna and St. Petersburg. The matter concerns investigative mechanisms. "This demonstrates that during the second meeting Baku quitted the Vienna agreements," he said. "It is senseless to organize one more meeting," he said, adding that the chances for changes in the peace process atmosphere are subsiding.      

To recall, the Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia met in Saint Petersburg on June 20 2016 at the behest of Vladimir Putin.  Reaching a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was the subject of discussion at the meeting, which took place behind closed doors.  Following the consultations, the presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan adopted a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to normalizing the situation on the line of contact and giving their approval to an increase in the number of OSCE observers working in the conflict zone. The joint statement also expresses the parties' commitment to putting in place the conditions required for steady progress in negotiations on a political settlement to the conflict.  The presidents made a point of their regular contacts on Karabakh and agree to continue them in such format as addition to the efforts by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs who were invited to the final stage of the meeting in St. Petersburg.  

Meanwhile, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that the investigative mechanisms at the present stage of the settlement are irrelevant and the issue can be discussed after "withdrawal of Armenian troops from the NKR". He also stressed that the Office of the OSCE CiO Personal Representative can be expanded by no more than 12-13 people.