Analyst: The discussion by the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan of  the“core issues” is evidence of certain compromises

ArmInfo.The discussion by the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Elmar Mammadyarov in Washington, of the “core issues” of the settlement is evidence of the parties to the negotiations making certain compromises. Director of the Armenian Center for National and Strategic Studies Manvel Sargsyan expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.

The last meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Washington on June 20 lasted over 3 hours. On June 24, Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Mammadyarov noted the proposals of the OSCE MG mediators for discussing the parties to the conflict as a positive moment for the Washington meeting. However, he said that these proposals have been discussed by the parties to the conflict for the past 15 years. The diplomat also said that Baku expects from the co-chairs proposals on the dates of the new meeting of foreign ministers.

 “The last statement of the OSCE Minsk Group’s co-chairs clearly marked the point on the parties’ discussion of “core issues”. And this is against the background of the actual refusal of Baku to discuss these very basic issues until the Armenian troops leave Artsakh. Thus, in fact, it turns out that Azerbaijan refused from this precondition, apparently, with the aim of refusing Armenia from mentioning the Vienna, St. Petersburg and Geneva provisions in the text of the statement. All other points concerned humanitarian agreements,” he stressed.

In this light, the analyst assesses the Washington meeting of foreign ministers as productive. According to his estimates, it introduced a certain clarity in the positions of the parties and in what problems they intend to deal with. In addition, the ministers agreed on the next meeting. And the co-chairs, in turn, offered the parties do not keep saying or repeat their previous statements.

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. Currently, the settlement process is nominally based on the Madrid Principles put forward by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs in 2007 in Madrid and updated in 2009.