STEPANAKERT. - Baku’s aspiration to blame the Armenian sides for the escalation of tensions and the situation created in the negotiation process is an undisguised attempt to veil its policy of driving the settlement process of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict into a deadlock and to torpedo the peacemaking efforts of the mediators.

Head of the Information and Public Relations Department of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR) Ministry of Foreign Affairs Artak Nersisyan told the aforementioned to Armenian News – NEWS.am.

Referring to the observation of Armenian News – NEWS.am on that following the visit of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs to Baku on June 19, the Azerbaijani authorities issued numerous comments, accusing the Armenian sides of violating the ceasefire regime with the aim of undermining the negotiation process, Nersisyan noted:

“Baku’s aspiration to blame the Armenian sides for the escalation of tensions and the situation created in the negotiation process is an undisguised attempt to veil its policy of driving the settlement process of the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict into a deadlock and to torpedo the peacemaking efforts of the mediators. This is especially evident against the background of the incessant provocations on the Line of Contact by the Azerbaijani side, Baku’s total disregard for its obligations to strengthen the ceasefire and the declared unwillingness to implement the agreements reached to ensure the conditions for the resumption of the negotiation process.

In this regard, it is necessary to note the June 19, 2017 statement by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmen, following their visit to Baku, which we view as another unambiguous reference to Azerbaijan as the party violating the ceasefire regime in the Azerbaijani-Karabakh conflict zone.

This positive trend, in the matter, observed in the recent statements of the Minsk Group Co-Chairmen, gives some hope that the mediators will not only completely abandon the practice of untargeted calls, but will also press more insistently on the implementation of the agreements reached in Vienna (May 16, 2016) and St. Petersburg ( June 20, 2016), aimed at strict observance of the termless trilateral agreements of  1994  on ceasefire and of 1995 on strengthening the ceasefire regime, for the establishment of a mechanism for investigation of incidents on the Line of Contact between the armed forces of Artsakh and Azerbaijan, and for the expansion of the Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office.”