With its decreased rating, the Armenian National Congress (ANC) gave President Serzh Sargsyan a serious head start on the threshold of Kazan-hosted trilateral presidential meeting, according to an ANC member, former Prime Minister Hrant Bagratyan.

“Due to political dialogue with ANC, Serzh Sargsyan can raise his voice, presenting the position of the whole country during the Karabakh talks,” Bagratyan told a news conference in Yerevan.

“Inside ANC, there are ongoing disputes as to negotiations with authorities. Still, I’m certain of ANC victory which will prove that the Congress made right decisions,” he said.

The Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia – Serzh Sargsyan, Ilham Aliyev and Dmitry Medvedev - are slated to meet on June 25 in the Russian city of Kazan, the next in a series of trilateral meetings on the Karabakh conflict settlement.

There are certain expectations with respect to the meeting, taking into consideration the Deauville statement adopted by the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries, who said “the time has arrived for all the sides to the Nagorno Karabakh conflict to take a decisive step towards a peaceful settlement. Further delay [in the settlement] would only call into question the commitment of the sides to reach an agreement.”