During a press conference, Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Vartan Oskanyan said that the co-presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group will pay a visit to the Southern Caucasus region on October 3 and it’s quite possible that the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan will meet afterwards depending on how things go. He also said that there were certain clarifications for the Karabakh conflict settlement process. In regard to the overall opinion that Armenia was trying to avoid having the foreign ministers meet until now, Oskanyan said that the meetings don’t end in itself and serve for a purpose and that lack of purpose was the reason why he refrained from meeting with Mamedyarov in Paris and New York. According to him, people shouldn’t think that Armenia is the one to blame for the delay of the meeting when Armenia is the one who is in favor of the negotiations. V. Oskanyan believes that the discussion of GUAM regarding regional conflicts at the UN General Assembly isn’t a good sign for Azeri politics. He says that voting for any document may go against Azerbaijan because there may be UN member countries that go against it. “In the UN, if two people vote, then that passes. But if 150 countries don’t vote for the proposal, then that will be bad for Azerbaijan because most of the UN countries are against the issues the country is bringing up,” said the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia. According to him, all UN member countries can present their version of the GUAM proposal. The OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen voted differently for including the GUAM regional conflicts issue on the UN agenda: the U.S. voted in favor, France was neutral and Russia was against. Vartan Oskanyan said that after the text is read Armenia will make its decision. If Armenia accepts the proposal, that means that Armenia will demand that Nagorno Karabakh take part in the conflict negotiations, but that doesn’t mean that Armenia is out of the picture. The minister also said that it has already been decided which OSCE Minsk Group missionaries and mandates will be involved with the issue concerning fires breaking out in different parts of Karabakh. The missionaries will be from around the world, they will get help from experts and Armenia will help them travel around the region. Oskanyan considers the recent report by Turkey in contrast to the fact that the “clear explanation” of the Armenian Genocide “was taken out of the agenda” of the European Parliament. If that explanation were to remain in the document, then Oskanyan would consider that ideal for Armenia. The call for recognizing the Armenian Genocide, according to the foreign minister, can be looked at as a precondition for Turkey because that is a prerequisite for Turkey to join the European Union. As for opening the Armenian-Turkish border and keeping diplomatic relations, V. Oskanyan says that that is a “high demand and it’s clear”; after all Turkey is required to open the border and establish diplomatic relations.
Ardent since childhood
But why is does the Minister ardent during his speeches? Does that have to do with the fact that he’s getting ready to run for president? In response to these questions, V. Oskanyan said that being ardent has nothing to do with the presidential elections and that he has always been like that.
“I have been working as Minister of Foreign Affairs sine 1998. Since then, they have always told me that I am very emotional when speaking. Has my style or way of talking changed in the past eight years? I talk the way I talk. When I give interviews, people who see me on television say that I move my hands too much, but that’s the way I am. I can’t express my opinions if I talk with my hand in my pocket. So, nothing has really changed, I have always been ardent. Let’s not confuse that with my ambitions to become president,” said V. Oskanyan.