Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan on Wednesday said that a consultative regional platform cannot serve as an arena for mediating negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Mirzoyan was responding to a proposal laid out by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov after the top diplomats of Armenia, Azerbaijan, Russia, Iran and Turkey held another round of talks in Istanbul on Friday under the so-called “3+3 Regional Platform.”
The creation of such a platform was put forth by Moscow and Ankara, as a means to create an enlarged regional platform that would expand economic cooperation between the aforementioned countries and Georgia. Official Tbilisi has rejected the plan and did not participate in the meeting on Friday.
“We, the Turks and the Iranians offered our colleagues, Yerevan and Baku, to use the 3+3 platform to complete the work on a peace treaty,” Lavrov said, adding that Russian-brokered agreements reached by Yerevan and Baku in 2021 and 2022 should serve as the “framework” for delimiting the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, opening it to commerce and settling other contentious issues.
Speaking at Armenia’s Parliament on Wednesday, Mirzoyan told lawmakers that Lavrov’s offer “is not really on the table”
“But even if it were, we do not find it expedient to respond positively to it,” Mirzoyan stressed, adding that Armenia has participated and will continue to participate in the efforts of the “3+3.”
“We have a format of bilateral negotiations with Azerbaijan in all directions, both on border demarcation and on the peace treaty,” Mirzoyan added, in response to a lawmaker’s question.
Echoing Lavrov’s comments about the border delimitation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Wednesday told reporters that Moscow has consistently offered its assistance in the process and has led efforts to that end within the relevant commission that is headed by the deputy prime ministers of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan.
She also quoted Russian Deputy Prime Minister Alexei Overchuk, who had said that “Unblocking the economic and transport corridors in the South Caucasus is possible only with the participation of Russia.”
