Oddities in the words of Minister S. Lavrov

Baku / 13.11.20 / Turan: The Russian authorities in their statements about the deployment of peacekeepers do not indicate the Nagorno-Karabakh as the territory of Azerbaijan. On November 12, Minister Sergei Lavrov said, “No peacekeeping units of the Turkish Republic will be sent to Nagorno-Karabakh. The boundaries of the mobility of Turkish observers are limited by those geographic coordinates that will be determined for the location, placement of the created Russian-Turkish monitoring center on the territory of Azerbaijan, in that part of the territory that is not close to Karabakh and which will be additionally agreed upon." The Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry does not react to this feature of Lavrov's statements.

Former Foreign Minister of Azerbaijan Tofig Zulfugarov, in an interview with Turan, agreed with the ambiguity of some statements of the Russian Foreign Ministry both about the belonging of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan and about the tasks of the peacekeeping forces. Zulfugarov recalled another strange statement by Lavrov about the dependence of the future status of NK on its population.

“We proceed from the fact that the status will be determined depending on what actions we must take to restore ethno-confessional harmony in Nagorno-Karabakh,” Lavrov said. According to the Russian minister, "we do not set any artificial deadlines here." (RIA News)  “At present, Azerbaijan is facing the first task of withdrawing the Armenian armed forces and locating the bodies of the Azerbaijani government in the liberated regions. It will be appropriate to deal with the statements of the Russian Foreign Ministry at the next stages,” T. Zulfugarov shared his opinion.

He believes that Russian Foreign Ministry is distanced from the Karabakh events, as if the Russian president took the central role in these processes. The Russian Foreign Ministry was active at the pre-war negotiations stage. After November 10, the center of responsibility shifted to the level of the presidents of Russia, Turkey and Azerbaijan.

At the same time, it should be understood that by verbally dividing Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan, the Russian Foreign Ministry puts its own meaning into this, and it will become clear in the near future, T. Zulfugarov shared his opinion.

He believes that the ambiguity in the statements of the Russian Foreign Ministry cannot become the reason for Azerbaijan's refusal from the mediating mission of Russia in Karabakh, since de facto Russia is the mediator there.  The task of Azerbaijani diplomacy is to make sure that Russia's interests coincide with the national tasks of our country.

Turan addressed questions to the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry. The head of the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs Leyla Abdullayeva wished to receive questions in writing, by mail. Questions have been sent, we will publish it as soon as we receive an answer, Turan notes. Another, unnamed source in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Azerbaijan said that the cited statement of S. Lavrov cannot be considered a new position of Russia, which differs from the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as the territory of Azerbaijan earlier declared by this state. The source advised to recall the statement of the press secretary of the Russian President Dmitry Peskov. On November 10, 2020, he said, explaining the agreement on peace in Karabakh, "This document does not talk about the status of Karabakh, at the moment we continue to proceed from all the relevant basic acts of international law, first of all, the relevant resolutions of the UN Security Council and other documents." - Peskov told reporters (RIA Novosti).--0--