EU monitors at the Armenian-Azerbaijan border
Russia’s Foreign Ministry on Wednesday said that the West’s continued interference in the South Caucasus region may risk the recurrence of military actions there and defended Baku’s accusation that France is preparing the ground for a new war in the region.
President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan contended that France was sowing the seeds of war in the Caucasus through its recent delivery of military equipment to Armenia. Official Baku has also condemned Paris and Washington for its “pro-Armenia” bias.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova on Wednesday blamed Yerevan for what she called a “radical shift” in Armenia’s foreign policy “orientation.”
“Western mediators, including France, have completely different goals. They seek to turn the South Caucasus into another arena of geopolitical confrontation, ignore the fundamental interests of the countries of the region, and do nothing to ensure the security, stability, and prosperity of this region,” Zakharova said.
“I believe that in Baku or in a number of other places, they are quite tired of intervention from Paris, which is unsuccessfully trying to restore its geopolitical prestige in the South Caucasus, which it has lost in other parts of the world and on other continents,” asserted Zakharova.
“Sadly, the risks of relapse remain in the South Caucasus. In this regard, Russia is consistently working to transform the region into a zone of stability and prosperity, based on the balance of interests of all regions and their neighbors,” explained the spokesperson.
She said neither the U.S. nor the EU can be considered bona fide mediators, because their underlying aim is to “remove Russia from the South Caucasus.”
“At the same time, Yerevan wants to negotiate in Washington and Brussels, although neither the US nor the EU can be considered bona fide mediators for a number of reasons. Their actions are “They want to destroy the existing security mechanisms in the region and at the same time to shamelessly steal and modify—in accordance with opportunistic considerations—the tripartite agreements reached with the participation of Moscow,” said Zakharova. “Therefore, there is no real benefit from their mediation, nor can it be, as the charge is different, the objective is different.”
“Yerevan’s reckless bet that the West will help them has been a fiasco. This is also obvious. It is impossible not to see this. Despite the existing proposals and invitations, the negotiations on the peace treaty are still frozen,” the Russian official lashed out.
Zakharova also discussed Yerevan’s decision to not participate in the upcoming summit of the Collective Security Treaty Organization set to begin Thursday in Minsk. She accused Armenia of trying to conceal its intentions by playing both sides, referencing comments by Armenian government officials about the need to diversify their interests.
She said Armenia’s reasoning for distancing itself from the CSTO is a “miscalculation,” and said Yerevan’s refusal to participate in the summit is “regrettable.”
“We do not believe that this decision corresponds to the interests of the Armenian people and will contribute to the security and stability of our friendly country. Our Armenian colleagues do not intend to impeded the activities of the [CSTO] bodies or to prevent the implementation of the already agreed documents. Basically, it leaves the door open for Yerevan and enables [it] to join the efforts later. We hope that the Armenian allies will take advantage of this opportunity already in the not-distant future,” Zakharova said.
She emphasized that Russia is convinced that the CSTO will play an important role in regional stability in the current conditions.
“A CSTO monitoring mission on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, the decision about which is ‘on the table’ as before, would be quite a significant factor in ensuring Armenia’s security, unlike the [current] EU [monitoring] mission [in Armenia], which continues to demonstrate its ineffectiveness,” Zakharova added.