Despite statements by officials from the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries—Russia, the U.S. and France—that the Ukraine crisis has effectively halted their efforts to mediate a settlement of the Karabakh conflict as a unit, Armenia’s Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Wednesday said that Yerevan’s visions about the group “remain in force.”
“We see the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict within the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship format. Nobody in the world has cancelled the conference, the decision of the conference which founded that format, it is in force,” Mirzoyan told lawmakers during remarks in parliament Wednesday.
He explained that while the current disagreements between the co-chair countries were not favorable to organizing discussions with the participation of all co-chairing countries, Mirzoyan warned that, “we can’t allow any vacuum to emerge in this respect.”
Armenia’s top diplomat also touched on his recent telephone conversation with his Azerbaijani counterpart, Jeyhum Bayramov. Mirzoyan explained that Bayramov initiated the call, during which the two discussed issues related to the delimitation and demarcation of borders, as well as launching “peace talks” between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which was an agreement reached during a meeting last week between the Azerbaijani and Armenian leaders in Brussels.
He assured lawmakers that specific discussion on the topics had not taken place, explaining that the two countries had spoken about the need for negotiations.
Mirzoyan said that last week’s meeting Brussels also might lead to the release of more prisoners of war being held captive in Azerbaijan.
“As expected this subject was discussed during the latest meeting between the Armenian Prime Minister, the Azerbaijani President and the [President of the European Council] Charles Michel. And there is a perception that a new group of Armenian captives must be released. We now continue negotiating over this,” Mirzoyan said, adding that Azerbaijan has failed in its obligation under the November 9 agreement, which called for the immediate release of all POWs.
