West no longer cooperate with Russia on Karabakh, says expert

PanARMENIAN.Net - The West has practically stopped working with Russia within the process of the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement and the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Russian political scientist Sergei Markedonov has said.

Markedonov made the remarks at a conference organized by the office of Rossotrudnichestvo in Armenia, Sputnik Armenia reports.

The expert recalled that the Karabakh process has always differed from other conflicts in the post-Soviet space. He said Russia and the West have always interacted over Karabakh, unlike other problematic subjects.

"Today we see a change in this logic. The OSCE Minsk Group has ceased to act at the level of co-chairs. The West does not want to work with Russia, there is stigmatization in many areas," Markedonov said.

"The formation of a new format for the settlement of Armenian-Azerbaijani relations – the Brussels one – is visible.

According to Markedonov's, paradoxically, everything that European Council President Charles Michel says is not rejected by Moscow. But one gets the impression that Russia does not exist at all and was not in the negotiations, he added. Meanwhile, Russia has much more groundwork for a settlement.

The Second Karabakh war lasted 44 days and ended when Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Russian and Azerbaijani Presidents Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev signed a ceasefire statement on November 9, 2020. Under the deal, the Armenian side returned all the seven regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, having lost a part of Karabakh itself in hostilities.