ArmInfo. Kiro Manoyan, Head of the ARFD Bureau's Hay Dat and Political Affairs Office, thinks that the presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan, Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev, will not meet before the end of 2016.
At today's press conference in Yerevan, Manoyan said that at the moment the conflicting parties are discussing how to maintain and strengthen the ceasefire rather than the core of the problem. So, one should not speak of any constructive steps or progress. "Even if the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan meet in December, they are unlikely to agree on a meeting of the Presidents before the end of this year," Manoyan stressed. He thinks France will initiate the next meeting, because Paris has repeatedly expressed its willingness to organize it.
He added that the issue of the NKR status has been discussed for many years. Since 2007, the mediators have been saying that the conflict can only be settled by means of a referendum. "The problem is that the conflicting parties take different views of Artsakh's borders," he said.
Manoyan thinks that the possibility of resumption of large-scale military actions in the NKR is low. However, he said, Baku will continue its provocations along the line of contact. "The Armenian party has already stated that it will give an adequate response. This may result in escalation, but not war," he stressed. To note, the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs and OSCE CiO Personal Representative Andrzej Kasprzyk will discuss with the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers the possibility of the Armenian and Azerbaijani presidents' meeting on the sidelines of the OSCE Ministerial in Hamburg in December 2016.
To recall, on June 20 2016, the Presidents of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia met in Saint Petersburg at the behest of Vladimir Putin. Reaching a settlement to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict was the subject of discussion at the meeting, which took place behind closed doors. Following the consultations, the presidents of Russia, Armenia and Azerbaijan adopted a joint statement reaffirming their commitment to normalizing the situation on the line of contact and giving their approval to an increase in the number of OSCE observers working in the conflict zone. The joint statement also expresses the parties' commitment to putting in place the conditions required for steady progress in negotiations on a political settlement to the conflict. The presidents made a point of their regular contacts on Karabakh and agree to continue them in such format as addition to the efforts by the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs who were invited to the final stage of the meeting in St. Petersburg. Meanwhile, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said that the investigative mechanisms at the present stage of the settlement are irrelevant and the issue can be discussed after "withdrawal of Armenian troops from the NKR". He also stressed that the Office of the OSCE CiO Personal Representative can be expanded by no more than 12-13 people.