Interesting developments are taking place in the process of the Karabakh conflict resolution. On Sunday the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs arrived in Stepanakert, where they had meetings with the NKR leadership. This is a prominent visit by itself as usually when visiting the region the co-chairs visit Armenia and from there go to NKR. It means that in the background of the recent developments of the negotiations and especially after the “willing” statements of the RA government officials the co-chairs left for Stepanakert to verify the standpoint of the NKR leadership. After the meeting with the NKR President Bako Sahakyan the Russian co-chair of the Minsk Group Yuri Merzlyakov said that Armenia disagrees with some provisions of their recently modified Madrid plan to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. “But we are not dramatizing the situation at all because two years ago the situation with the Madrid document was the same, with the Armenian side claiming to accept it – not fully, as it is turning out now – and the Azerbaijani side not accepting it,” the Russian diplomat said according to Radio Liberty. However, yesterday after the meeting with the Armenia’s President Serzh Sargsyan and Foreign Affairs Minister Edward Nalbandyan Merzlyakov retracted his statement. So we may assume that in Yerevan the co-chairs assured that there is “no problem.” The statement of the Foreign Affairs Ministry of Armenia released after Nalbandyan’s meeting with the co-chairs is quite remarkable. It reads, “When adverting to the bargaining of the recommendations related to Madrid Principles the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia said that the Madrid Principles have been accepted by Armenia as a basis of negotiations back two years ago and they continue to be considered as such even now.” It is interesting who Nalbandyan meant by saying “bargainers.” It is evident that in this case he not only meant Azerbaijan.
