We can expect toughening of Baku’s rhetoric before the next ministerial meeting. This is what Director of the Caucasus Institute, political scientist Alexander Iskandaryan told journalists today.
According to him, this is mainly linked to the interior political situation in Azerbaijan. “Azerbaijan will be holding parliamentary elections in February, and they are very important for the country. The Karabakh issue is a very effective and consolidating factor for both average citizens and the elites,” he stated and noted that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is a topic in the discourses of both parties, and often the statements of Yerevan and Baku have nothing to do with the main conflict.
On December 4, at the 26th OSCE Ministerial Council, the meeting of Ministers of Foreign Affairs of Armenia and Azerbaijan Zohrab Mnatsakanyan and Elmar Mammadyarov was held through the mediation and with the participation of OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs Igor Popov (Russian Federation), Stéphane Visconti (France) and Andrew Schoffer (USA) and Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Andrzej Kasprzyk. After the meeting, during the 26th OSCE Ministerial Council, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Slovakia and OSCE Chairperson-in-Office Miroslav Lajčák declared that there is a real threat of escalation of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.
Azerbaijan will hold snap parliamentary elections on February 9, 2020.