Pundit: The Minsk Group is a tool for prolonging conflict
By Prof Kamran Rustamov
When the OSCE Minsk Group was set up for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the parties harbored the hope that the great men of the great countries would find a mutually acceptable formula for the settlement of the conflict. However, endless negotiation processes, various platforms under various slogans, increasingly diverted the problem from its solution.
Each proposal of the Minsk Group obviously carried thresholds that could not be crossed. Chattering the process was beneficial to the Armenian aggressor.
Territories are occupied. Everything that is not destroyed or robbed is used for the profit of certain people, the so-called leaders of the Karabakh movement, who, under this flag, usurped power in Armenia, having robbed it, and became dollar billionaires. And all this happened against the backdrop of the impoverishment of the Armenian people.
At the same time, almost a million Azerbaijanis, who became refugees on their land, were forced to drag out a miserable existence. Armenia tried to drag out this anti-Azerbaijani process for decades. It is no coincidence that the dirty bastard Kocharyan said that "if not Pashinyan, then we could bury the heads of Azerbaijanis for another 40 years".
Having given the Armenians in the teeth in the 44-day war, the Minsk Group was buried once and for all. Although today in Armenia and in some circles of the West, one can see a pathetic attempt to restore this stinking political remnant of the Armenian-Western bond.
“The US administration claims that the mechanism of the Minsk Group of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) is no longer functioning, and Washington is engaged in a peaceful settlement between Azerbaijan and Armenia only in the process of interacting directly with Baku and Yerevan," TASS reports.
"I think it has evolved to the point where we can, through consensus, end this mandate," Senior Adviser to the US Secretary of State for Caucasus Negotiations Philip Reeker said Wednesday of the group.
“Nevertheless, the mandate itself is quite useful. Although the process [of interaction] between the co-chairs of the Minsk Group is no longer functioning. And we participate directly with the parties [to the conflict] in their peace process,” the diplomat said, speaking at a hearing in the US Senate Committee on Foreign Relations.
The co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group are Russia, the United States, and France. Washington and Paris curtailed all contacts with Moscow within the Troika after Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine.
“The Minsk Group, as it was known, is not functioning. The mandate remains. The purpose of the mandate, of course, remains. And the OSCE operates on the basis of consensus. I remain in very close contact with my French colleague, with the EU, which is now so [deeply] involved in the region, with other stakeholders, with the OSCE itself,” Reeker said.
"Azerbaijan has simply declared that it will no longer deal with the Minsk Group," he added.
Meanwhile, Senator Benjamin Cardin (D-Maryland), who took part in the hearings, urged the United States to seek the elimination of the Minsk Group. In addition, he argued that the group is used for their own purposes by those parties who "do not want to move forward towards peace".
There is nothing to add to this! The Minsk group is dead!