An Armenian nationalist party said on Tuesday it had “no serious expectations” from a new round of Armenian-Azerbaijani talks on Karabakh to be hosted by Russia this week.
Armen Rustamian, a senior member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (Dashnaktsutyun), said at a press conference that no breakthrough is possible because “Azerbaijan continues to follow a hard line” and “fails to embrace the idea that the issue should primarily be resolved by way of recognizing Karabakh’s status and ensuring its people’s security.”
Speaking about the current stage of the peace process, the leading Dashnak member claimed that the international mediators are making an attempt to “enforce peace” and that the Armenian-Azerbaijani summit in Astrakhan, in southern Russia, will be held “within the framework of this very logic”.
“The mediators are trying to move from persuasion to enforcement of peace, which means that a certain package of principles is supposed to become a basis for this peace,” said Rustamian, describing such a development as “very dangerous”.
“We may once again hear a strict appeal to speed up the negotiations on the basis of proposed principles and move on to drafting a big peace agreement,” he added.