The Minsk Group Co-Chairs held a closed-door meeting on Nagorno Karabakh last week, featuring Western diplomats and experts from Armenia, Azerbaijan and Artsakh.
President of the Helsinki Initiative/92 Nagorno-Karabakh Committee Karen Ohanjanyan was one of the experts attending the Tbilisi meeting. Speaking to Public Radio of Armenia, the expert said “Azerbaijanis seemed concerned.”
“We learnt a very important thing, we got to know the position of Azerbaijan. Aware that they do not benefit from the attacks and are unable to win through military means, they lay the emphasis on the continuation of the negotiation process, they want Artsakh to join the talks,” Ohanjanyan said.
Attaching important to the meetings on the level of experts, Spokesman for the NKR President David Babayan said “Artsakh should participate in the development of any document.”
Political scientist Sergey Minasyan, who participated in the closed-door meeting on behalf of Armenia, said the meeting was different from all others as it featured no representatives of the civil society, only experts, including ones from Western countries.
“It became clear from the meeting that there is no real threat of change in the OSCE Minsk Group format, something Baku and Ankara long for,” he said.
Minasyan added that Turkey’s interference is now impossible also because of the Russian-Turkish crisis. “This country has lost the levers of interference not only in Syria, but also the South Caucasus,” he said.
