Russian Foreign Ministry urges Yerevan to come back to negotiating table with Azerbaijan
YEREVAN, January 12, /ARKA/. Russian Foreign Ministry's spokeswoman Maria Zakharova called on Armenia today to come back to the negotiating table to continue the work on implementation of a set of agreements made together with Azerbaijan and Russia.
"If our Armenian partners are really interested in solving problems ... then instead of engaging in scholasticism, it is necessary to continue working together. Russia's proposal to provide a venue for Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on the peace treaty remains in force," Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing.
Under a peace deal signed in 2020, Russia deployed a peacekeeping contingent to Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan agreed to ensure free movement along the Lachin Corridor that links Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. However, the corridor has been blocked by Azerbaijan since December 2022 last year
Armenia says Azerbaijan is not abiding by that agreement and wants Russian peacekeepers to do more to dislodge the 'environmental' protesters, blocking the road.
Zakharova said at a January 10 press conference Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan spoke both about his intention to sign a document based on Russian proposals (which says Armenia and Azerbaijan should sign a peace treaty and leave the Karabakh status issue to future) and, at the same time, about giving preference to a 'comprehensive solution' to the conflict promoted by the West.
"It is difficult to assess Yerevan's position when their official statements differ so significantly," Zakharova said
Zakharova said that earlier Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov provided a detailed description of Russian efforts to help solve the Karabakh problem, including the implementation of the statement of November 9, 2020 and other related trilateral agreements.
According to her, Yerevan's agreement to work out a peace treaty with Baku based on the Alma-Ata Declaration of 1991, which was fixed in a statement made after a Pashinyan-Aliyev summit in Prague in October 2022, radically changed the logic of the negotiation process.
"The Alma-Ata Declaration reaffirmed the inviolability of the borders that existed between the republics of the Soviet Union. At that time the Nagorno-Karabakh autonomous region was part of the Soviet Azerbaijan. Of course, it's very hard to ignore this circumstance in the peace process between Baku and Yerevan," she said.
Zakharova also accused Armenia of cancelling a meeting between the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan on the peace treaty, scheduled for December 23, 2022 in Moscow, 'which prevented discussion not only of the peace treaty, but also on other pressing issues of Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization, including the situation around the Lachin corridor." -0-
