Yerevan Violated Ethical Norms and Published Documents Without Parties’ Consent, Says Zakharova

MOSCOW — “Yerevan has violated ethical standards and, without the consent of the parties, published the working documents of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, as well as correspondence between heads of state.”

This was stated by Maria Zakharova, spokesperson for the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, during a briefing.

“Since they have already published them, we can comment on them. The documents made public by the UN and the OSCE, in the drafting and adoption of which Russia took an active part, convincingly confirm that over the course of three decades the Russian side, as a co-chair of the Minsk Group, consistently made efforts to achieve a political and diplomatic settlement of the Karabakh conflict, and that ‘a great deal was done,’” the diplomat said.

According to Zakharova, the published documents show that at various stages of the negotiations, opportunities were created for a political and diplomatic resolution of the conflict and for taking into account the interests of the peoples living there—that is, the interests of the region.

“To achieve this, strategic vision and political will were required from the conflicting sides. And the task of the mediators—in this case, the Minsk Group co-chairs—was to help Baku and Yerevan resolve the conflict, not turn it into an endless dispute. Yes, these documents show that there were opportunities, and they were missed, but that is not our fault,” Zakharova noted.

It should be recalled that on December 2, the Government of the Republic of Armenia published a number of documents held by state agencies related to the negotiation process on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict, which provide insight into the substance of the negotiations that took place up to 2020.