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At February 23 sitting of the Standing Committee on Regional and Eurasian Integration, the RA Minister of Foreign Affairs Ara Aivazian touched upon a number of regional issues. To his assessment, after 44-dat war a rearrangement of the regional, big players’ forces and influences takes place in South Caucasus, which has not still crystalized, and it is early to give assessments to the existing realities.

“In terms of maintenance of ceasefire and ensuring security, the Russian Federation assumed a special role. Evidently, the aspirations of Turkey have also increased in the region. The fact of Nagorno Karabakh issue not solved continues remaining one of the key challenges of the region. The consequences of the use of force against Artsakh and part of occupation of Artsakh territories by Azerbaijan with the support and immediate participation of Turkey cannot be considered as a conflict settlement. Only political negotiated settlement, which will respect everybody’s rights and would define the final status of Artsakh, can be considered the full stop of the conflict. We are committed to resume the settlement process, but, first of all, an environment promoting the peace should be formed, and its preconditions are not noticeable yet by the Azerbaijani side,” the Minister said. According to him, the non-fulfilment of the humanitarian part of the tripartite statement of November 9 by Azerbaijan testifies to it, which particularly is expressed by causing obstacles for repatriation of captives. “At the same time, our position remains unchanged – the Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship is the only internationally recognized format of the Karabakh settlement, and we continue supporting that format,” the Minister underlined.

Ara Aivazian also reflected upon economic issues, noting the negative influences conditioned by pandemic on the trade turnover in the EEU.

In his final words the Committee Chair Mikayel Melkumyan noted that because of a number of objective and subjective reasons, a most serious, almost 12-13% economic fall would be registered, which would be very hard to restore. The MP informed that issues regarding the transport deblockading project of the region, the bid of Iran to join the EEU and a number of other issues would be discussed in a closed format.