Thursday, April 18 2019 12:58

ArmInfo. The planned meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington in reality is the initiative of Azerbaijan, and not the United States,  Manvel Sargsyan, head of the Armenian Center for National and  Strategic Studies, expressed such an opinion to ArmInfo.

Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov told reporters in  Warsaw about the US proposal to hold the next meeting of Azerbaijani  and Armenian Foreign Ministers to resolve the Karabakh conflict in  Washington. "Yesterday we received an invitation from the United  States to visit Washington, where the Secretary of State will also  put forward his proposals for achieving a breakthrough in resolving  the conflict," Mammadyarov said.

"The reasons for this initiative of Baku are obvious. The Minsk Group  was forced to accept the new negotiation agenda proposed by Yerevan.  Armenia proposes to specify the Madrid principles as much as possible  and start a discussion on the return of Artsakh to the process. Thus,  the Madrid settlement principles were first questioned. And Baku has  nothing to answer this",  he stressed.

In this light, according to the analyst, Azerbaijan has no choice but  to try to work with the mediators separately, in order to prevent the  realization of the Armenian agenda that is disastrous for Baku.  According to Sargsyan, no one, including Azerbaijan itself can answer  the simple question of why Artsakh does not participate in the  negotiations today. And this is in conditions when the discussion of  the territorial problem is the exclusive prerogative of Stepanakert,  and not Yerevan.

"Azerbaijan lost  the game, as soon as the Armenian agenda was  adopted by the co-chairs of the Minsk Group. And in Moscow as well,  judging by the latest statement by Mammadyarov and attempts to  attract Washington, Baku didn't succeed. " the head of the Center  said.

On April 15, a trilateral meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Russia,  Azerbaijan and Armenia on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict was  held in Moscow. Following the meeting, a joint statement was adopted.

Since 1992, the OSCE Minsk Group has been involved in resolving the  Karabakh conflict, represented by the co-chairs from Russia, the  United States and France. At present, the settlement process is  proceeding on the basis of the Madrid Principles put forward by the  OSCE Minsk Group in 2007 and the Madrid Principles updated in 2009,  which, among other things, provide for the deployment of a  peacekeeping force in the conflict zone.