Stepan Safaryan: ANC expectations from Kazan meeting primitive

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian National Congress (ANC) expectation for the outcome of the trilateral Kazan meeting between Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian Presidents was extremely primitive, head of Heritage oppositional Party Parliamentary Group Stepan Safaryan told a press conference.

“ANC expected that President Serzh Sargsyan will either sign the agreement non-beneficial for Armenia, which would naturally had an impact on his positions in the country, or will have to conduct extraordinary elections which ANC would consider its own victory,” according to Safaryan.

“They did not reckon for the third way, and, in essence, I suppose that Armenia’s authorities used all possible emergency exits of talks, and, in the end, it is evident that Baku is responsible for non-signing,” The Member of Parliament said.

He also noted that failure to sign a document in Kazan is also explained, on the one hand, by maximal demands of Azerbaijan and its reluctance to compromise, and on the other hand, by contradictions among OSCE MG co-chair countries, particularly, Russia’s willing to monopolize negotiation process.

The summit between Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia in Kazan on June 24 completed without an agreement on basic principles of Nagorno Karabakh conflict settlement. “The countries’ leaders registered mutual understanding on a range of problems, the resolution of which boosts creation of conditions for approving main principles. The meeting participants considered the course of works carried out with the aim of coordination of the project with basic principles,” according to the statement. The Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan expressed gratitude to the Russian, French and U.S. leaders, the OSCE Minsk group co-chairs, for ‘their constant attention to Nagorno-Karabakh problem’ and highly praised personal efforts of the Russian President in support of agreements.

Later on Minister of Foreign Affairs Edward Nalbanian noted that the June 24 meeting was not a breakthrough, as Azerbaijan proved unready to accept the final version of the basic principles suggested by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs. Instead, the Azerbaijani leader attempted to impose 10 new proposals, thus precluding the possibility of any agreement on the issue,” he added.