Why meeting of the Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers in Stockholm was canceled
The meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan Ararat Mirzoyan and Jeyhun Bayramov did not take place in Stockholm. The possibility of the minister’s meeting within the framework of the OSCE Foreign Ministers Council was first announced by the representative of the EU Foreign Ministry Luc Divin. Later this information was confirmed by the press service of the Armenian Foreign Ministry.
On December 2-3, both ministers participated in the 28th OSCE Ministerial Conference where the next round of negotiations was supposed to take place. Previously, Mirzoyan and Bayramov met in New York, Minsk and Paris.
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“Armenia never avoided meetings”
Yerevan did not comment on the reasons for the canceling of the meeting of the foreign ministers.
After Mirzoyan’s working visit to Sweden, the press secretary of the Armenian Foreign Ministry Vahan Hunanyan only said that there would be no meeting with Bayramov, and stressed:
“The Armenian side has never avoided meetings within the framework of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process under the mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs”.
Earlier, back in Stockholm, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan also once again reaffirmed Armenia’s commitment to negotiations on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict within the format of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship, as it was before the last war.
Baku blames Armenia
The Azerbaijani side refused to participate in the meeting, press secretary of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva reported, accusing the Armenian side of disrupting the negotiations:
“A few hours before the meeting scheduled for December 3, the Armenian side carried out a provocation. In particular, information was disseminated about the illegal visit of Armenian parliamentarians to the territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Thus, in response to this provocation on the part of Armenia, the Azerbaijani side did not consider it expedient to participate in the meeting of the ministers of the two countries in Stockholm”.
The statement refers to the visit of Armenian deputies to the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh. On December 3-5, a delegation of the National Assembly of Armenia participated in joint parliamentary hearings there.
Co-chairs regret the missed opportunity
OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Andrew Schaffer (USA), Igor Khovaev (Russia), and Brice Rockfoy (France) made a statement expressing their readiness to organize a meeting of the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan:
“The Co-Chairs regret that it was not possible to hold a joint meeting between the Foreign Ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan under their auspices in Stockholm. They express their readiness to host such a meeting as soon as circumstances allow to continue discussions begun in New York in September and in Paris in November”.
Expert commentary from Armenia
The visit of the Armenian deputies was just an excuse for Azerbaijan, political scientist Benjamin Poghosyan believes.
He says that the canceled meeting between Mirzoyan and Bayramov was a consequence of the unproductive meeting of the leaders of Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan on November 26, which its participants assessed as “extremely useful”, as well as the subsequently failed talks between the vice-prime ministers of the three countries.
Azerbaijan began to react more sharply to the visits of Armenian officials to the unrecognized NKR after the end of the second Karabakh war.
Baku condemned such visits of former Foreign Minister Ara Ayvazyan and former Defense Minister Arshak Karapetyan, assessing them as an attempt to provoke tensions. Moreover, after Arshak Karapetyan’s visit to NK, in addition to statements, the Azerbaijani side took actions that exacerbated the already tense situation on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
According to Benjamin Poghosyan, the Armenian authorities were asked not to travel to NKR:
“The demand was put before Pashinyan, and he agreed to it, I think, about 13 months ago, on November 8-9, 2020 [when the trilateral agreement on the cessation of hostilities in Karabakh was signed. Since then Pashinyan has never visited Nagorno-Karabakh – JAMnews]”.
According to the political scientist, Azerbaijan uses “military blackmail and pressure” to make Armenia recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan and obtain a corridor that would run through the southern territories of Armenia to its exclave Nakhichevan:
“This policy of military blackmail will continue until Armenia agrees to Azerbaijan’s demands, or the Armenian armed forces demonstrate that Azerbaijan’s military blackmail does not work”.
