News - Zakharova on Stoltenberg's South Caucasus visit: Attempt to pull regional countries into NATO zone of influence

This is another manifestation of the attempt to pull the countries of the South Caucasus into the zone of the Euro-Atlantic alliance. Maria Zakharova, the official representative of the Russian Ministry of Foreign Affairs(MFA), stated this in a press briefing Wednesday—and commenting on NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg’s visits to Azerbaijan, Georgia, and Armenia. "The attempts have been carried out for a long time and on a regular basis both by NATO supporters and NATO member states individually. The recent visit of a NATO official of such level confirms that this activity has increased in that direction, and has increased many times over. What is the problem? What is the essence? And the essence is that the problems seem to have decreased in the South Caucasus. But who can this satisfy in the West? Who would like that in the West? The fact that these states are cooperating with each other, which has already started moving closer to peaceful agreements, does not give rest to the West. The fact of equal, mutually respectful, and global peace-oriented contact between these states with Russia is not convenient to the West. Hence the continuous attempts of NATO and its supporter, the European Union, to promote the deterioration of the relations of the states of the region—both with each other and with Moscow—to aggravate the situation along our southern borders. Of course, there is also the maximum task, which is to open a second front against our country in Transcaucasia and to set the region on fire again. The agreements that were reached [between Armenia and Azerbaijan] with the mediation of Russia are literally a piece of red rag for the West because it was really a path leading to peace, based on mutual respect and mutual consideration of each other's interests. Western emissaries in the Armenian direction have become noticeably active in recent times. In particular, they advance the Armenia-NATO Individual Partnership Program. Their efforts are aimed at discrediting Yerevan's ties with Moscow, ultimately, at the complete cancellation of our contracts; the West does not hide this. Now they want to drive a wedge in our relations with Baku," said the official representative of the Russian MFA.