Below is an excerpt from the paper’s editorial:
Over the past couple of days, certain developments have been observed in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process. In a statement yesterday, the Russian Foreign Ministry announced a plan for a trilateral Armenian-Azerbaijani-Russian presidential meeting, but hours later, denied the report.
Yesterday, however, Dmitry Peskov, a spokesperson for the Russian president, said Russia is now in a process of arranging the meeting. Simultaneously, Azerbaijan has been very enthusiastic in the past days, highlighting not only its relations with Russia and the country’s exceptional role in the conflict settlement process but also the meeting slated for June.
Armenia has not yet officially expressed any position, including on the possible meeting. That, along with other factors, demonstrates that Armenia has no interest at all in a meeting to be held in such a format.
Moreover, judging by Azerbaijan’s enthusiasm, it is quite possible that Russia has given new guarantees to that country, saying that what failed due to the Armenian armed forces will be imposed upon Armenia “diplomatically”.
Plausibly, the St Petersburg presidential summit is an extra pressure towards that, i.e. – Russia may cancel the meeting in case of the anti-air defense agreement’s ratification. In such a situation, by the way, the western co-chairs’ neutrality is strange to say the least.
The western co-chairmanship, which practically seized the initiative from Russia, now turns out to be returning it to the country “in a friendly manner”. That’s strange if not hazardous, as the West might have apparently reached certain agreements with Russia, conceding instead the dominant role in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement process and the feasibility of the “Russian plan”.