Settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict depends on political will of the conflict sides, the OSCE Secretary General Lamberto Zannier said during the OSCE Ministerial Council meeting.
He stressed that the organization’s aim is to provide opportunities for negotiations, but each of the parties should take advantage of these opportunities.
The conflict sides need to make efforts to find a solution. I welcome OSCE’s mediatory role in the conflict," Trend cited him as saying.
Zannier added that he shares the position of the German Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier, who said at the Council's opening that it is necessary that the process should get a second wind.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov noted that the commitment to the reached agreements plays a key role in resolving the complicated problems including the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Russian FM noted that the conflicts must be settled within the existing formats on condition that the balance of all parties’ interests is preserved.
US Secretary of State John Kerry said that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict remains a cause of concern for the OSCE member countries. He recalled that the conflict has been unresolved for already a long time.
EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Federica Mogherini, said that the EU hopes for implementation of the previously reached agreements on the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Mogherini added that the sides of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict should seek to establish a lasting peace in the region.
A political analyst, Candidate of Historical Sciences Oleg Kuznetsov, speaking with a correspondent of Vestnik Kavkaza, said that the Minsk Group has exhausted its potential a long time ago.
He recalled that the OSCE Minsk Group was created in 1992. "The structure has the status of a working group, and therefore, it must offer the conflicting parties various options for resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We know that major efforts were made to develop several models, we know about the Madrid and Kazan principles. Therefore, the Minsk group has completely exhausted its potential within the framework of its diplomatic efforts and opportunities, as the group has implemented all possible variants of its activities," Kuznetsov said.
According to the expert, all the member countries of the groups are completely excluded from participation in its activities, because they realize that nothing depends on them anymore. "Right now, the activity of the Minsk group includes activities of its three co-chairs, who make some political statements and act as a courier between Baku and Yerevan," Kuznetsov explained.
However, the OSCE itself has a large amount of additional powers and competences. "The only thing that OSCE can do right now is to abolish the Minsk group and create a fundamentally new international legal instrument of a diplomatic nature instead, but with a different set of competences and powers," the political consultant noted.
Accordingly, he said, if the authoritative politicians make relevant statements, they should understand their further steps. "Specific measures to create a fundamentally new OSCE structure must be implemented, which would be engaged in the settlement of Nagorno Karabakh conflict on a fundamentally new basis," Oleg Kuznetsov concluded.
