Artsakh President Samvel Shahramnyan said that the Artsakh authorities are against the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, a condition pushed by President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan and one that Armenia’s authorities are inclined to pursue.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan this week proposed to Azerbaijan that he will back the dissolution of the Minsk Group if Baku agrees to sign the peace accord simultaneously.
During a briefing with reporters on Friday in Yerevan, Shahramanyan, the Artsakh president said that the OSCE Minsk Group is “the only international platform that was created specifically to resolve the [Karabakh] conflict. These decisions to close the ‘Artsakh page,’ to dissolve the Minsk Group, are announced by the authorities of Armenia. And I expect also the reaction of the citizens of Armenia.”
Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan angrily declared on Wednesday that Yerevan will not advance the cause of forcibly displaced Artsakh Armenians on the international stage because there are no longer Armenians living in Artsakh.
Speaking to lawmakers in parliament, Mirzoyan also blasted Artsakh leaders saying their rhetoric was destabilizing and expressing frustration with accusations by the Artsakh leaders that Armenia’s authorities essentially “sold out” Artsakh.
He repeated an earlier statement made by the foreign ministry that because Shahramanyan signed a decree—under duress—declaring the Artsakh Republic null and void, immediately following the September, 2023 attack on Artsakh, Yerevan’s hands were tied.
“The fact is that after the forced deportation and especially the proclamation of that well-known document on their self-dissolution, that agenda cannot continue for the simple reason that there are no Armenians living there [Artsakh] whose rights we can talk about,” Mirzoyan said.
Last week the foreign ministry also had said that efforts to set up direct talks between Artsakh and Azerbaijani leaders, through the mediation efforts of third countries, had failed because the Artsakh leaders refused to take part in such discussions.
Shahramanyan on Friday had a contradicting explanation, saying that he and others were prepared to meet with Azerbaijani representatives, but they refused to attend a meeting.
He explained that Artsakh’s National Security Council had approved that Arayik Harutyunyan, the Artsakh president at the time, would travel to Sofia, Bulgaria to meet with Azerbaijani officials, responding positively to a proposal for mediate talks.
“Then, 15 days later, there was another proposal to meet in Bratislava [capital of Solvakia], which we accepted, and our delegation had bought tickets to go there, but Azerbaijan rejected it,” Shamranyan told reporters on Friday.
He called the statement by Armenia’s foreign ministry to the contrary “not ethical.”
