Thursday, October 29 2020 13:32

ArmInfo.The Yerevan accents of the visit of the Iranian President's special envoy Abbas Arakchi, in my opinion, will play a decisive role in the prospects for the implementation of Tehran's initiatives towards the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. A similar opinion was expressed to ArmInfo by Fyodor Lukyanov, Scientific Director of the Valdai International Discussion Club.

On October 27, Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said that Iran  had drawn up a plan for the final settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh  conflict, which will be presented one of these days and will be  implemented later in Moscow and Yerevan. At the same time, the  Iranian President's special envoy, Deputy Foreign Minister Abbas  Arakchi is visiting Russia, Azerbaijan, Armenia and Turkey to resolve  the Karabakh conflict.

"The reasons for Tehran's similar initiative are on the surface. This  is its own security - the conflict takes place directly on its  northern borders, threatening the population and infrastructures.  Another factor is geopolitics. Iran seeks to strengthen its own  position in the region through cooperation with neighboring  countries," he said.

In this light, the geography of Arakchi's voyage, according to the  analyst, testifies to Iran's desire to act in one bundle in Russia  and Turkey, bypassing the OSCE Minsk Group. In other words, Tehran is  trying to act in Karabakh according to the Syrian model in the  Astana, guaranteeing negotiations, trilateral format.  And if  Tehran's plans are implemented, the role of the West, in particular  the United States, in the region will significantly decrease, which  is entirely based on the interests of Iran.

Commenting on the prospects for the implementation of the Iranian  settlement program, the analyst conditioned them by the still  unpublished content of the package. According to him, the success of  Tehran in the settlement can only be the result of the balance of its  proposals to the parties to the conflict. And the same statements  Arakchi's Baku statements are already unacceptable for Yerevan. At  the same time, Lukyanov does not exclude completely different  statements from the mouth of the Iranian special envoy in Yerevan.

"At this stage, I assess the likelihood of the success of the Iranian  mission as very low - there are too many questions and problems. In  addition, one of the parties may well disagree with the prospect of  weakening the format of the OSCE Minsk Group. A big question is the  acceptability of Turkey, which has declared itself a party to the  conflict, in the settlement in the role of a mediator for Armenia.  And of course, much in these prospects depends on the position of the  West itself, "Lukyanov summed up.  On October 29, upon arriving in  Moscow for the talks, Iranian special envoy Abbas Arakchi stated that  the main goal of Iran's proposal is to end the crisis in  Nagorno-Karabakh. And the most important features are its regional  approach and realism. "Almost 30 years have passed since the creation  of the Minsk Group, and this group was unable to find a lasting  solution to this issue, it proved its inability. Some countries of  this group are not in the region at all and have nothing to do with  this crisis," he said.