Armenia’s Foreign Minister Zohrab Mnatsakanyan does not see a dead-end situation regarding the settlement of the Karabakh issue. At the same time, the Minister emphasised that there cannot be a situation where one of the parties tries to get everything with maximalist positions while the other does not; that is the path that will lead to a dead end.
According to Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, no meeting at the level of the leaders of the two countries is planned in the near future; instead, the foreign ministers will meet very soon.
The OSCE Secretary General had announced that the Mnatsakanyan-Mammadyarov meeting would take place on 5-6 December in Bratislava, where the regular OSCE ministerial meeting is to be held.
In response to Azatutyun’s question about the current situation in the negotiation process, particularly whether the Armenian Prime Minister’s statement that “Artsakh is Armenia, period” — which was not unequivocally accepted by the international community — had an impact on the process, the Minister replied: “We are working in a targeted and purposeful manner in the negotiation process; all the positions we put forward are, I am sure, more than familiar to you, because we speak about them many times, and with all those combinations we are working in the negotiation process, working very targetedly, and we have never slowed down those consistent meetings, we have never delayed the process.”
The Minister recalled that the last meeting took place in September, and the next meeting at the level of ministers will be very soon. “At the moment we are not yet planning at the level of leaders, but anything can happen, develop in any direction, if necessary, and there are certain understandings and ideas at the level of leaders on how meetings can be organised; we have work to do in that regard. Most importantly, we have our very clear positions in this matter, which are aimed at the following: to ensure a format, a field, where the parties’ commitments are comparable. There cannot be a situation where one of the parties tries to get everything with maximalist positions and the other does not; this is going to lead to a dead end,” he added.
To Azatutyun’s other question — whether, judging by the parties’ statements, there is no dead-end situation now — the Minister gave a negative answer: there is no dead end now. “At least as far as we are concerned, we see no dead end; we continue to work very calmly and cool-headedly, because this is work that must be done; it concerns our security, the security of our region, establishing peace,” Mnatsakanyan stressed.
According to Zohrab Mnatsakanyan, working in the emotional field in this regard is not serious, nor is it responsible.
Asked whether he sees that constructive approach from Azerbaijan, the Foreign Minister responded as follows: “I hope that that will is also manifested and expressed in a more pronounced way on the other side.”
