Bellicose statements of Baku aim to fail negotiations on Karabakh

PanARMENIAN.Net - On November 11, Armenia’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE, Ambassador Ashot Hovakimyan delivered a speech in response to a report of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen and Personal Representative of OSCE Chairman-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk.

Ashot Hovakimyan specifically said: “As it was noted during a press conference of Russian President Dmitry Medvedev after a trilateral meeting of the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian Presidents in Astrakhan, the Presidents of the two countries instructed Foreign Ministers to continue negotiations to reach an agreement around basic principles for the conflict settlement. Azerbaijan’s Permanent Representative to the OSCE said in this very hall that the basic principles have lost their importance and their discussion is a waste of time and efforts. How can the Azerbaijani Ambassador label as baseless a thing, around which the Azerbaijani President instructed to conduct negotiations?” According to Hovakimyan, through such stance Azerbaijan factually resists the format of negotiations through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen.

“Besides, I would like to refer to the efforts aimed at strengthening confidence. Trust in the military field and security building measures make an inseparable part of a range of documents aimed at the Karabakh conflict settlement. However, they have been continuously rejected by Azerbaijan. According to agreements reached in Astrakhan, other confidence building measures should follow the first step,” Hovakimyan said, adding that Baku has used even the first step aimed at strengthening confidence for its propagandistic purposes, what in its turn deepens the distrust. “The Azerbaijani leadership’s bellicose statements and threats, which aim to fail the negotiations, also escalate the atmosphere,” the RA MFA press service quoted Ashot Hovakimyan as saying.