YEREVAN. – Some developments are occurring in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process, in the past two days, according to 168 Zham newspaper.

“The RF [i.e. Russian Federation] Foreign Ministry stated that a trilateral meeting—with participation by the presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia—will soon take place in [the Russian city of] Saint Petersburg, then denied that statement a few hours later.

“But RF presidential spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the Russian side is working on the preparation of this meeting. In parallel, it has been two days that [respective] enthusiastic statements are made from the Azerbaijani side (…).

“The Armenian side has not yet officially expressed a position on this possible meeting, which, among several other factors, evidences that Armenia is not interested in the holding of a meeting with such format.

“Furthermore, judging by the dose of Azerbaijani excitement, it is not ruled out that Russia has given Azerbaijan another guarantee that Armenia will be imposed, by ‘diplomatic’ way, what failed [in Karabakh] thanks to the Armenian armed forces.

“[But] Russia may cancel this meeting in case of the ratification [by Armenia] of the air defense agreement [with Russia].

“In this situation, by the way, the western [OSCE Minsk Group] co-chairs’ [i.e. US and France] neutrality, at least so far, is bizarre, at the least,” wrote 168 Zham.