YEREVAN, JULY 13, ARMENPRESS. Experts believe that the Ambassadors of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries to Azerbaijan – France, Russia and the United States, have rejected the official Baku’s invitation to visit Shushi because they do not consider that the Artsakh issue is solved and are interested in the resumption of the negotiation process under the auspices of the Co-Chairs.

Expert on Azerbaijani studies Taron Hovhannisyan told Armenpress that that step of the three Co-Chair countries aims at not obstructing the resumption of the negotiation process.

“I suppose that the motive of not visiting the occupied territories of Artsakh at the invitation of Azerbaijan is for those countries not to damage the future process of the conflict settlement which they want to resume. Otherwise, their visit could have had a very serious negative impact on the prospects of returning to the settlement process and could be perceived as a message by that countries that they agree with Azerbaijan’s approach that the “issue is solved””, Taron Hovhannisyan said.

Asked whether with this step Russia, France and the United States show signs for restoration of the Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship format, the expert noted that this is more like a desire to quickly restore the process or a demonstration of a desire of not obstructing the resumption process.

According to him, if the Ambassadors of the Co-Chair countries visited Shushi, it would show that they are not so interested in the resumption of the Karabakh process, but, instead, they accept that this new status-quo is a solution to the conflict. But as the Co-Chairs have stated that this is not a solution for them, therefore, the only effective tool of staying in the process is the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship.

Mr. Hovhannisyan said the talk mainly concerns France and the United States because Russia is already involved in the process.

“Therefore, they need to come back to the process and participate in the management of that process. Thus, the resumption of the negotiation process for the conflict settlement within that same format is beneficial to them”, the expert stated.

Analyst, expert on Oriental studies Armen Petrosyan is convinced that the decision of the Ambassadors of not visiting Shushi is again connected with the fact that the Artsakh issue is not solved yet, in particular that the status of Artsakh is not clarified.

He noted that the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries have made quite a competent decision of not visiting Shushi.

Ambassadors of 46 countries accredited to Azerbaijan and representatives of the diplomatic corps visited Artsakh’s occupied territories, including Shushi, on July 9-10 at the invitation of the Azerbaijani government. However, the Ambassadors of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries –Russia, France and the US, have rejected Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s invitation.

The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs support resumption of the high-level political dialogue between Armenia and Azerbaijan aimed at the lasting and comprehensive settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict, however the Azerbaijani leader continues to claim that the conflict is solved after the 2020 War.

Editing and Translating by Aneta Harutyunyan