Diplomat: US and France`s refusal to cooperate with Russia in the  Minsk format forces Armenia and Azerbaijan to make a choice

ArmInfo.The refusal of the United States and France to cooperate with the Russian Federation in the settlement of the Artsakh conflict in the format of the OSCE  Minsk Group format forces Armenia and Azerbaijan to make a choice.  Former Foreign Minister of Artsakh, Ambassador Extraordinary and  Plenipotentiary Arman Melikyan expressed a similar opinion to  ArmInfo.

On April 8, at a briefing with Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat  Mirzoyan in Moscow, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said that  he did not know what the fate of the OSCE Minsk Group Troika would  be, citing the position of the United States and France as the  reason. "Our French and American partners ( so-called partners in  this group), in a Russophobic frenzy and in an effort to cancel  everything related to the Russian Federation, said that they would  not communicate with us in that format. This is their right. If they  are ready to sacrifice their interests in the settlement in Karabakh  and in the Transcaucasus as a whole, then this is their choice," he  said.

"It is clear that such a demarche of the two OSCE Minsk Group  Co-Chair countries creates a fundamentally new situation in the  negotiation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and taking into  account the need for Yerevan and Baku to choose a new platform for  negotiations, the situation is rather complicated. In any case, what  happened is the refusal of Washington and Paris to cooperate with  Moscow in this format, it was not a surprise for all of us," he  stressed.

Summing up the results of the Brussels talks between Pashinyan and  Aliyev, the diplomat concludes that the West has decided to deal with  the settlement of problems between Armenia and Azerbaijan personally.   Moreover, the flagship in this area of policy is the EU. However,  even if the EU is indeed able to assist the process of a peaceful  settlement of the conflict, Melikyan has no idea how the Europeans  can bypass the Russian military, also non-military, presence in  Artsakh, as well as in Armenia and Azerbaijan.

In this light, the diplomat also highlighted the EU's lack of its own  foreign policy and military agenda separate from NATO and the US. The  latter, in his opinion, gives rise to doubts about the ability of  Brussels to promote the Armenian-Azerbaijani reconciliation in the  conditions when Russian peacekeepers are "on the ground" in Artsakh.  And the military-political and economic influence of Moscow on  Yerevan and Baku is still quite large.

" In this light, one gets the impression that Brussels is only ready  to create a platform for solving problems between Yerevan and Baku.  Apparently, the EU does not consider the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict  and its political settlement to be negotiated on its part. Regarding  Artsakh, the EU prefers to confine itself to a rather vague mention  of the humanitarian problems of Artsakh. Accordingly, we should  clearly distinguish between Artsakh and the settlement through the  mediation of Brussels, in fact, the problems between Yerevan and  Baku. And how all these innovations will affect the settlement of the  Artsakh problem, in fact, on its status it is premature to forecast  today," the diplomat summed up.