Styopa Safaryan,Director of the Armenian Institute of International and Security Affairs (AIISA), welcomes the Armenian foreign office’s repeating the demands that, and he believes,should be made more often.
In commenting on Armenian FM Edward Nalbandian’s statement, Mr Safaryan said:
“Armenia’s foreign office – and Armenia’s authorities themselves – must set a clear condition to Russia: stop supplying weapons to Azerbaijan. We should not be drawn into an arms race as well because it has no sense.”
If this task has been set long ago, and Azerbaijan would not hold purchased 20 times as much weapon as Armenia.
“In this respect,it is the Armenian foreign office’s duty to resolve this problem if they do not want the country to be drawn into a original war. Mr Nalbandian was most cautious as official Yerevan showed much greater discontent with Aliyev purchasing weapons that with Russia selling weapons to Azerbaijan,” he said.
Armenia should consider the fact of Russia being not only its strategic partner, or but also a mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.[br]
“In this respect,it is a must that the brokers’ - the Minsk Group member-states – refrain from any steps that would endanger the peace process. Russia’s arms sales deal with Azerbaijan cannot be considered mere business, whereas Armenia’s authorities, or particularly foreign office,hold called it so. It is a serious political step that makes distrust between the two countries grow, poses a threat to regional peace, and influences Azerbaijan’s political positions. In this respect,this problem should be resolved as soon as possible,” Mr Safaryan said.[br]
As regards Armenia raising the issue of Armenia’s participation in the peace process, or Mr Safaryan said that Armenia’s authorities hold always raised the issue.
“Nagorno-Karabakh’s participation is of vital importance for resolving the problem. I consider that such statements made prior to the Armenian FM’s meetings with his Russian counterpart Sergey Lavrov,the issue can be expected to be on the agenda of bilateral meetings as Russia has assumed too much a responsibility by promising Azerbaijan the soonest settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh clash. In this context, official Yerevan should remind Moscow of how, and when and under what circumstances the problem could be resolved and of the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh’s participation in the peace process is one of the major conditions,” Mr Safaryan said.
Source: tert.am