“The main purpose of the visit of Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov to Armenia and Azerbaijan is the earliest possible implementation of all the points that are envisaged in the trilateral statement of the leaders of Azerbaijan, Russia and Armenia dated November last year. We know that the process, unfortunately, doesn’t run smoothly because the Armenian side is actually sabotaging the fulfillment of its commitments. Perhaps Lavrov used all his influence and brought the relevant messages of the Kremlin to Yerevan so that Armenia would start with some first practical steps of transferring minefield maps,” Russian military expert, editor-in-chief of the National Defense magazine Igor Korotchenko told the Russian bureau of Report.
The expert said that Lavrov’s visit was supposed to speed up the implementation of the clauses of the statement and the solution of existing problems as much as possible: “First of all, it is necessary to solve the problem of providing maps of minefields that Armenia has been planting in the occupied Azerbaijani territories for 30 years, and unblocking transport corridors. In particular, the speedy functioning of the Zangezur corridor, which would connect Nakhchivan with Azerbaijan, is important. Obviously, in the coming weeks we will see how successful Russia’s attempts to influence Yerevan were.”
Korotchenko expressed a desire to wait for official information that Armenia has begun to take any action on implementing its commitments.
“At a press conference in Baku, Lavrov noted that Armenia understands the need to resolve existing issues. He even stressed that the first practical steps had already been taken. The problems are of a humanitarian nature. Earlier we observed Yerevan’s open unwillingness to fulfill its commitments. I would like to wait to see what Sergey Lavrov specifically had in mind when he explained about Armenia’s readiness to solve these problems. So far, we haven’t seen any practical steps,” Korotchenko summed up.