Azerbaijan wants Turkey to become OSCE MG Co-chair

PanARMENIAN.Net - Official Baku wants Turkey to join the Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement process as a mediator.



"Azerbaijan would like Turkey to become Co-chairman of the OSCE Minsk Group," Head of the Foreign Relations Department of the Presidential Administration of Azerbaijan, Novruz Mammadov said, Azeri Trend news agency reports.



"Turkey is a friendly, fraternal country and strategic partner of Azerbaijan, and it is represented in the Minsk Group. But the formation of the chairmanship to the Minsk Group is realized via consensus. I suppose that the probability of Armenia's consent to Turkey's chairmanship equals zero. Therefore it is impossible to speak about this extensively," said Mammadov.



According to him, leaders of Turkey and Armenia held discussions several times.



"If as a result of the efforts made by the Government of Turkey in the last negotiations with the Armenians for the solution of conflict, they can convince the Armenian side of consent to representation in the Minsk Group, a number of questions can be clarified. If an agreement is reached upon the format, it can come out that Turkey will become the Co-chair of the Minsk Group. But I do not think it's real," he added.



He said that the South Caucasus is one of the sensitive regions of Eurasia and the clashes between Georgia and Russia affected the processes in the world and the international relations. And they also created a new situation in the international relations.



"Therefore, taking into account the processes in the foreign relations, several analysts, centers declare that possibly the cochairmen or the format of the OSCE Minsk Group will change. Here the discussions deal with the change in the format. Because in these processes, tension arose between Russia and the U.S., and each of these countries stand on the different positions contrary to each other," Mammadov said.



He also added that despite this, still the agenda does not include and is not expected to include a change to the cochairmen or format of OSCE Minsk Group. "Such questions demand patience. Simply, as the Co-chairs of the Minsk Group visited the region individually, an opinion appeared regarding the change to the co-chair countries or format," Mammadov said.