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Founder of The Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs, Styopa Safaryan commented on the upcoming trilateral meeting between the Presidents of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan on June 20 in St. Petersburg. 
 

“There are two things we need to consider. The first is the OSCE spokesperson’s statement saying that the OSCE has nothing to do with this [meeting]. We should interpret this as an independent decision, and Russia has no mandate by any structure to organize a settlement meeting.

his is an unprecedented statement. The second is the backstory of this meeting. The Russian Foreign Ministry announced about it, shortly the RA Presidential spokesperson stated that the FM has no right to make such statements, and that it should come from the presidential administration. The reasons are obviously the long discussions between OSCE, Russian Federation and the Co-Chairs. The prove being the above mentioned unprecedented statement, showing that there’s a disagreement between the Co-Chairs, impossible to hide any longer,” he said.
 

According the Safaryan, either this is going to be an unfruitful meeting or the RF will manage to persuade the OSCE Co-Chairs to be present, at least formally. “The OSCE doesn’t say that the Minsk Group isn’t involved [in the meeting organization]. The agreements of this meeting don’t have any legal force. The RF had the courage to organize such a meeting, but it has nowhere to go. Implementation of any agreement will be perceived as illegitimate”.