Political analysts state fruitless meeting of Armenian and Azeri Foreign Ministers

Armenia has toughened its positions on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, Stepan Safaryan, a political analyst, have stated. In the opinion of his colleagues, Ruben Megrabyan and Ara Papyan, the mediators are trying to keep the situation in the conflict zone under control.

The "Caucasian Knot" that the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group – the Russian Ambassador Igor Popov and his French and US colleagues Stefan Visconti and Richard Hoagland – held a meeting in Baku on July 11 with Elmar Mamedyarov and Edward Nalbandyan, the Foreign Ministers of Azerbaijan and Armenia respectively. They were offered to arrange meeting of Presidents of the two countries.

The OSCE Minsk Group is trying to manage, not settle, the Karabakh conflict, said Ruben Megrabyan, an expert of the Centre for Political and International Studies.

According to his version, the meeting of Foreign Ministers "showed no progress in conflict settlement."

Edward Nalbandyan believes that the meeting has failed to reduce the threat of war restart, while, in his view, supplies of Russian weapons "drove up the confrontation bar."

Stepan Safaryan believes that the deterioration of Russian-Azeri relations may affect the Karabakh settlement.

Ara Papyan, the head of the "Modus Vivendi" Centre, has added that the purchase of a large batch of weapons from Russia confirms the Azerbaijani plans to start a new war.

Full text of the article is available on the Russian page of 24/7 Internet agency ‘Caucasian Knot’.