Moscow respects choice of Baku and Yerevan to conduct bilateral dialogue without the mediation of Russian Federation - Maria Zakharova
YEREVAN, July 24. /ARKA/. Russia respects the choice of Azerbaijan and Armenia to conduct bilateral dialogue without the mediation of the Russian Federation, said the official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova.
"We have repeatedly said that Russia is interested in a stable, secure, peaceful, prosperous South Caucasus. And one of the necessary conditions for achieving this, of course, is the long-awaited reconciliation of Baku and Yerevan. And how much our country has done for this," Zakharova noted at a briefing on Thursday.
According to her, with the direct assistance of Russia and personally President Vladimir Putin, a major stage of Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization was launched in 2020, a “road map” was developed in all strategic areas, which includes agreeing on a peace treaty, unblocking transport and economic communications in the region, delimitation and demarcation of the state border, and development of contacts through civil society.
"At a certain point, Azerbaijan and Armenia preferred direct bilateral dialogue, we respect this choice, after all, we are talking about the fact that they have to negotiate and live with each other, with their neighbors, so if they found an opportunity for direct dialogue, then yes, this is their choice, which means that much of what we talked about is working out," Zakharova said.
At the same time, she emphasized that Moscow is ready to continue to provide partners with the assistance they need across the entire spectrum of issues, including providing a platform for consultations to sign an agreement on peace and the establishment of state relations between Azerbaijan and Armenia.
"That is, they interact in a bilateral format - great, if help is needed - please, we supported the holding of negotiations between the foreign ministers of the two countries in Almaty in May 2024, welcomed the recent bilateral contacts at the highest level in Abu Dhabi on July 10," the representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry recalled.
At the same time, she expressed the opinion that the signals from Western capitals should be viewed in a different light - "In words, everything seems to be going smoothly, you need to see the essence, and the essence is that the information we receive leaves no doubt about the true motives of the West under the next "good" intentions - and they know how to talk about it."
"There is a purely opportunistic task hidden, literally "pulling" the Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization out of the regional dimension, when two South Caucasian countries are trying to come to constructive, consensus decisions on their own with the support of their closest neighbors. The Westerners are aiming to transfer the process of reconciliation between Baku and Yerevan to their own tracks, where these tracks usually lead, we also know, in order to earn political points, to declare the next successes of their own efforts," the Russian diplomat noted.
She thinks that this could lead to an imbalance in the security system in the region, undermining the principle of regional self-sufficiency, when the states of the South Caucasus are dealing with the solution of current issues.
