Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev will quit the format of the OSCE Minsk Group for the Karabakh conflict settlement only after Russia or the West gives him strong guarantees about his power retention, Arman Melikyan, political analyst, ex-foreign minister of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, says in an interview with ArmInfo.
To note, Ilham Aliyev has recently criticized the Co-Chairs, describing the OSCE MG as a senseless organization. Azeri Foreign Minister Elmar Mammadyarov also expressed his discontent with the OSCE MG activities. Afterwards, Armenian Foreign Minister Edward Nalbandian praised the activity of the Co- Chairs, saying that their stand coincides with Armenia's stand.
"Baku thinks that these guarantees should also imply provision of free discretion to Baku in the Karabakh process. Aliyev also hopes that these force centers will clearly promise to provide him with political, diplomatic, economic and military support," he stressed.
Melikyan thinks that before receiving all the specified guarantees, Azerbaijan will apparently keep abstaining from abrupt moves to change the negotiation format.
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There is no doubt that the militarist rhetoric and armed provocations on the line of contact, which aim to blackmail all the actors concerned will remain a part of the arsenal of Baku's policy," he says.