BAKU, Azerbaijan, Oct. 30
Trend:
When the Minsk Group co-chairs are three members of the UN Security Council, when three nuclear powers cannot exert pressure on Armenia, this, of course, raises a lot of questions, President of the Republic of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev said in interview to Russian Interfax agency, Trend reports.
“I have spoken many times about the activity of the OSCE Minsk Group over the past month. And what I said in the address to the Azerbaijani people is absolute truth. Any format, no matter what it is called and who it involves, should acknowledge its ineffectiveness if it doesn't fulfill the set task. And the set task has not been fulfilled. Although I cannot deny that the Minsk Group made attempts to reach a settlement, because fundamental principles were elaborated with its assistance. They worked and they proposed options. There were some things we didn't agree with, there were some things that the Armenian side didn't agree with. So that was a process that had lasted until Pashinyan came to power in Armenia," said President Aliyev.
"But from the point of view of effectiveness and efficiency, the Minsk Group, of course, didn't justify itself, I mean the activity of the co-chairs. Should the co-chairs be other countries, this could have been explained by their insufficient international weight, by their lack of authority to implement even the UN Security Council resolutions that they had adopted themselves. But when the Minsk Group co-chairs are three members of the UN Security Council, when three nuclear powers cannot exert pressure on Armenia, this, of course, raises a lot of questions," Ilham Aliyev said.
"As for the composition, I have already said that the Minsk Group was set up in 1992. I don't know how it was set up and what principles underlie the choice of its members. But as I said, if we formed a contact group today, its composition would, of course, have been completely different. It would include countries that have their positions in the region and that have potential and authority in the world. Of course, I think the countries that are current co- chairs could probably remain there. But this is not a question for me, because the mechanism and the procedure of forming the Minsk Group and its co-chairs is the prerogative of the OSCE," he said.
"I think that we should not cling to formalities in order to settle the conflict. The Minsk Group as such can continue working, but we should think about new cooperation mechanisms between the countries of the region in order to practically reach a political settlement. I think that Russian President Vladimir Putin probably meant the same when he spoke about this,” the head of state said.