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Armenian and Azerbaijani Foreign Ministers met in the capital city of Kazakhstan Almaty on July 17. The mediators also attended the meeting. The lack of positive assessments on the meeting results indicates that the sides did not come to an agreement. And to all appearances, the lack of agreement was caused by Baku’s unconstructive stance. This is not merely a supposition, but a conclusion drawn from confrontation of facts and events preceding and following the meeting.

We had touched upon the issue before the meeting, specifically, speaking about Azerbaijan’s approaches to the negotiation process and main elements of conflict resolution.

We had shown clearly that by accepting some of the elements and rejecting others Official Baku, in essence, rejects them. Thus Baku uses the whole set of diplomatic instruments to leave responsibility for process failure on the Armenian side. However, Baku fails to do it, and it is confirmed by the statements following the meeting. First we will view mediators’ statements. OSCE co-chairing countries Foreign Ministers issued a statement mentioning that international community’s attention is focused on Azerbaijan’s policy, and use of propaganda and diplomatic tricks gave no results since the mediators committed no mistake.

Thus, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov (as well as a bunch of other state officials and court experts) for several months had been speaking about “accepting Madrid Principles with some reservations” enumerating what they accept and what not. Therefore, the mediators had to remind them of the danger approaches of the kind pose.

“These elements are developed as a whole, and any attempt to selectively single out some elements makes balanced resolution impossible,” Sergey Lavrov, Bernard Kouchner and James Steinberg warned when speaking about the well-known 6 elements.

Next, though Official Baku has repeatedly assumed the commitment to resolve the conflict peacefully, it never ceased to make bellicose statements and even provoked an armed clash on the contact line in June, 2010. It did not slip mediators’ attention, either. However, they did not call for being restrained, neither they reminded of sides’ commitments but clearly warned in this connection:

“The current situation is consequence of use of force, and its recurrence will only lead to sufferings and destructions and will hand down conflict and hostility to the next generations.”

And lastly, Azerbaijan had organized a long-lasting political-informational campaign to misrepresent the conflict essence and to use international community resources on that basis to solve the conflict in favor of it.

Particularly, Azerbaijan attempted to show that the conflict is a territorial argument between Azerbaijan and Armenia disregarding Nagorno Karabakh population’s rights. While co-chairing countries representatives statement indicates that these efforts of Baku were also vain.

“The heads of co-chairing countries delegations reaffirmed their support to the sides in the issue of achieving peaceful agreement, meanwhile mentioned that Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders are most responsible for ending the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.”

Pay attention to the fact that they speak not about Armenian and Azerbaijani authorities but Armenian and Azerbaijani leaders; the international community has no doubt that no stable and fair problem resolution is possible without NKR representatives.

Now let’s touch upon the statements of the sides. Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan’s assessment is more than clear:

“The pentalateral meeting was useful, though there was no possibility to issue a pentalateral statement, certainly, because of Azerbaijan’s unconstructive stance.”

No comments are needed: Armenian Foreign Minister explains lack of agreement by the opposite side’s unconstructive stance.

And what is Elmar Mammadyarov’s response?

“Personally, I formed the opinion that Armenia does not wish progress in the negotiations,” Azerbaijani Foreign Minister declared.

At first sight it may seem that it is a mirror statement of blaming the Armenian side for being unconstructive, however, with a difference that Elmar Mammadyarov’s statement rather related to his personal impressions.

If Elmar Mammadyarov were Azerbaijani media correspondent and issued a statement based on his impressions, perhaps his assessment would be valuable. However, since he is Minister and personally took part in the negotiations, his assessments should have been more exact. Since his statements are not exact, it means he avoids calling things by their name. Thus, a matter of responsibility is supposed to be here. To all appearances, Elmar Mammadyarov and his leaders avoid responsibility for failing the process. Because, if he confesses his fault in the lack of agreement, he will have to give explanations not only to the world but also in his own country.