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The latest statement of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs was addressed, Armen Rustamyan, head of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation-Dashnaktsutyun (ARF-D) faction told parliamentary briefings on Monday, commenting on the Co-Chairs’ call upon the sides ‘to refrain from inflammatory statements and provocative actions’.

According to Rustamyan, the Minsk Group Co-Chairs arrived in Armenia with fresh impressions from Azerbaijan, where President Ilham Aliyev, trying to maintain his grip on power, made swaggering statements (over territorial claims to Yerevan and Zangezur) typical to him a few days ago.

“The Minsk Group has two issues to deal with: the first one refers to involving Artsakh in the negotiations, while the second one is to make Azerbaijan negotiable, i.e. to bring it to the negotiating table,” he said.

ARF’s chief stressed Azerbaijan has become nonnegotiable with its work-style of saying one thing during the Artsakh talks but doing a completely different thing afterwards with its military rhetoric, adding the talks cannot proceed in this way. 

He detailed the matter is to create at least a normal atmosphere for negotiations, which is the main commitment of the mediators. He underlined unlike Azerbaijan’s wishes, Armenia does not expect the Co-Chairs to defend one of the sides by making statements acceptable to it.

The MP noted the recent statement makes a reference to Aliyev’s inflammatory statements given the fact no one has witnessed such statements from Armenia at least during this period. “The Azerbaijani side remains steadfast, tough, pointless and viewless becoming the main factor of hampering negotiations with its regime,” he added.