ArmInfo.Armenia's application to the OSCE Minsk Group "for peace" is a response to demands by France and the USA. Paris and Washington explicitly presented the demands: an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace agreement must be signed exclusively under the OSCE Minsk Group's auspices, Andrias Ghukasyan, Chairman of the Constructive Party of Armenia, said in an interview with ArmInfo.
In response to the proposals published on March 14, Armenia's foreign office stated:
"Armenia has responded to the recent peace proposals of Azerbaijan and has applied to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship to organize negotiations on a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan based on the UN Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the Helsinki Final Act."
"Yerevan has until recently been postponing negotiations over a peace agreement with Baku under the pretext of resolving the post-war problems, to create the necessary conditions for discussing the Azerbaijan-proposed agenda. So the application to the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship is evidence of Armenia's readiness for negotiations exclusively within the format proposed by France and the USA," Mr Ghukasyan said.
As regards Azerbaijan's real goals behind the five-point proposals, he singled out Yerevan's recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan. So the proposals do not contain anything new given the fact that it has been Baku's political objective since the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict broke out.
With the Armenian government's current potential, Mr Ghukasyan does not rule out the implementation of the point on "mutual recognition of respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability of internationally recognized borders and political independence of each other." He highlights the importance of such points in international agreements, stressing that any peaceful settlement implies a need for a decision on the Artsakh people's status.
"At this point it should be noted that almost all the proposals by the Minsk Group provided for similar processes. Armenia cannot replace Artsakh in this process. And even if Yerevan, for some reasons, dares to implement a policy of drawing up documents in defiance of the will and interests of Artstakh, neither France nor the USA or Armenia will support it. Such a policy could only be supported in Azerbaijan, Turkey and, possibly, in Russia," Mr Ghukasyan said.