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Armenia’s Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan spoke of the meeting of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairmen scheduled in Moscow on September 8.

“We have been in this process [Karabakh conflict settlement] for more than 20 years, meetings are periodically organized, yet we are unable to move forward due to a simple reason – one of the parties, Azerbaijan, blatantly violates agreements reached over the negotiation table. The Vienna and Saint Petersburg s summits come to prove that when a commitment was taken to strengthen the ceasefire regime along the Line of Contact, Azerbaijan actually hinders that,” Kocharyan stressed.
At a remark whether no expectations are with regard to the upcoming meeting, Kocharyan replied rhetorically: “What expectation we may speak of when we have been in the same process for more than 20 years?”.

“An expectation may come with Azerbaijan to change its destructive approach. The logic is quite perceivable – as far as shooting is happening, provocations are in place, any progress toward the settlement process is ruled out,” the deputy minister maintained.

The journalists asked about banning political scientist Stepan Grigoryan’s entry to the Russian Federation. “That is the right of each state even without any explanation which is envisaged by the Vienna Convention. This case however is unprecedented in terms of its application to the Armenian-Russian relations. Out of this consideration we have applied to the Russian Foreign Ministry asking for relative explanations,” Kocharyan said.