News - Russia MFA spokesperson: Armenia's unfriendly statements hinder settlement process

We were guided by the fact that such statements of such an unfriendly nature should not be made not because we do not respect sovereignty, God forbid, we do not respect the independence of Armenia, of course, it is a sovereign country for us. We talked about the inadmissibility, harmfulness, and danger of such statements because they can disturb the situation: lead to escalation, to the deterioration of the settlement process. Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian foreign ministry, stated this at Wednesday ministry press briefing, when asked whether the "unfriendly" statements by the Armenian side affect the view of the Russian side to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue and the mood of the Russian peacekeepers there. "And they [i.e. the aforesaid statements] will definitely hinder the implementation of everything that the two sides [i.e. Armenia and Azerbaijan] have agreed on with Russian mediation. And all that has been recorded in the documents that were approved by the heads of the three countries. You understand, here the connection is a little different; it does not lead to the point where we take a stance to statements we don't like, etc. And we accept the position of defense of the agreements which shall lead, in case of their implementation, to settlement. And we are talking about the fact that such statements can, with a large share of probability, already harm the implementation of that real peace plan of settlement. There are no formalities, a formal approach here, there is no exclusively diplomatic practice here, they didn't say that, we didn't like it, we will react because we have to. There is an attempt to explain here that it does not harm us, that these statements, these arrogant moves that are initiated, hinder the settlement. And what is the settlement process? It is not just something written on paper, specified with signatures. People are behind it who have been hostages of unsettled and sometimes heated situation for so many years. And in order not to fall into such a decline once again, we note the inadmissibility of those statements and moves which you mentioned," stated the Russian MFA spox.