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“Azerbaijan is trying to take Karbakh problem discussions to other levels. Yet the OSCE Minsk Group is the only format that has been given a mandate by the international community,” Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandyan said during a press conference today when asked to comment on the draft report ‘Escalation of violence in Nagorno Karabakh and other occupied territories of Nagorno Karabakh’ written by British MP Robert Walter and adopted by the PACE’s Political Affairs and Democracy Committee.

Nalbandyan said Armenia’s stance is the same as that of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs – no organization should take steps that may hinder a peaceful resolution to the conflict and escalate tensions in the region.

No conflict has been settled through PACE or a similar organization, E. Nalbandyan said.
“We should work with the Co-chairs so as to find exclusively peaceful means of settling the conflict,” he stressed.
Speaking about the impartiality of the rapporteur, E. Nalbandyan said that a man cannot take an impartial position when he for many years was a member of the parliamentary friendship group with Azerbaijan and, according to British media reports, was financed by Baku and cooperated with Azerbaijani funds, while his family members have financial interests in Azerbaijan.

The foreign minister of Armenia declined to comment on the contents of the PACE report, saying that it does not deserve that.
E. Nalbandyan said that the Azerbaijani authorities describe PACE documents in various ways: they called the last but one document a piece of paper, while the last one was presented as a document equal to the United Nations’ Charter.