STEPANAKERT. – Overall, official Stepanakert gives a positive assessment to Ireland’s OSCE Chairmanship and its activities toward settlement of the Karabakh conflict, the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) President’s Press Secretary Davit Babayan told Armenian News-NEWS.am reflecting on Ireland’s OSCE Chairmanship, which is coming to an end.   

In his words, the passing year did not stand out with crucial decisions and a breakthrough in settlement of the Karabakh conflict. “Yet Ireland did what was possible to keep the [peace] process on a normal course, to maintain a relative calm,” Babayan noted. At the same time he stressed that, by its actions, Azerbaijan made the peace process meet an impasse.       

With respect to Ireland’s role in settlement of the Karabakh conflict, the NKR President’s press secretary stated that based on the structural peculiarities of the OSCE, its chairing country primarily resolves technical and procedural matters, “but not political. That is why, there were not—and there could not have been—any breakthroughs,” Davit Babayan said.