The talks on Nagorno-Karabakh held in Vienna are indicative of the readiness of Armenia and Azerbaijan to agree, Chairperson of the Council of the Federation Committee on Foreign Affairs, Konstantin Kosachev wrote in his blog, RIA Novosti reports.
“Following the talks on Nagorno-Karabakh settlement in Vienna with the participation of the representatives of contact group countries, as well as Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents – for the first time since the resumption of military actions - it once again struck me that I perceive the positions of the conflicting parties almost similarly,” the Senator wrote.
In his opinion, this kind of perception dualism only stresses that there is no absolute truth in this conflict. That is, compromises will still have to be looked for, Kosachev stressed. And the independent mediators should help them where the sides find it difficult to compromise. “Russia doesn’t need the victory of one side: it needs a firm peace acceptable for both sides, excluding any possibility of a solution by force,” Kosachev noted.
Apparently, it was possible to agree on a lot of points in Vienna. First of all, the sides confirmed the common wish to achieve observance of truce and ceasefire, the way this ceasefire was reached in 1994-1995. Besides, they agreed to maximally involve OSCE for incident investigation and search for those missing, the Senator wrote. “The mediators’ mission is certainly important, but the main work must be carried out by the conflicting parties themselves,” he stressed.
In his opinion, the preconditions for this are in place. In this context, Kosachev welcomed the decision of his colleagues in the Armenian parliament, who voted on Monday against the inclusion of the bill on Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR/Artsakh) recognition in the agenda. “I understand that many of them would wish such recognition. But they chose in favor of the peaceful settlement, and not bilateral actions. There are signals from Baku on the readiness to agree. We can hear them and are ready to support them as much as possible,” the MP concluded.
