Today in the capital city of Kazakhstan Almaty the two-day unofficial conference of foreign affairs minister of OSCE member states was launched. According to the opinion of certain pundits certain document may be signed regarding the regulation of the NKR conflict. During the conference unofficial meetings will take place among the foreign affairs ministers of Armenia, Azerbaijan, USA, France and Russia. In fact it is hard to say whether any document will be signed at all because the dozen of statements made by the Azerbaijani side during the past several days (including the statement of the foreign affairs minister if Azerbaijan Elmar Mamedyarov, according to which in Almaty they will be discussing the issue of the return of Lachin and Qelbajar). Besides that the unclear responses of the Armenian side basically have advocacy purposes. However, one thing is clear for sure. This is going to be the first meeting of the foreign affairs ministers after the statements of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chair states’ presidents and after the “optimistic visit” of the US State Secretary Hillary Clinton to the region. It means that the RA and Azerbaijani foreign affairs ministers should somehow respond to the “goodwill” of the super states and the urges of Obama, Medvedev and Sarkozie. And perhaps that is the reason why they have sent their foreign affairs ministers to get the first hand information from the meeting of Nalbandyan and Mamedyarov. The future will show what this “responding test” will be. And as you know the toasts become sweeter.
