Bryza: US isn’t as actively present in South Caucasus region as before

The US isn’t as actively present in the South Caucasus region as it used to be, former co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, former US ambassador to Azerbaijan Matthew Bryza said at an online conference entitled "The South Caucasus and the West. The WHYs and HOWs of stronger EU-US Engagement," Report informs.

Everyone remembers the July escalation on the Azerbaijani-Armenian border, he said. Neither the US, nor the EU or the Minsk Group showed any particular activity at that time, he noted.

The Minsk Group received a mandate to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict on the territory of Azerbaijan, Bryza said. The mandate of the Minsk Group doesn’t extend to the border of Armenia and Azerbaijan, he added. So, the Minsk Group didn’t show any special actions, and a certain vacuum was formed in the sphere of security and diplomacy, Bryza said.

He also noted that it was difficult for the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing countries to gain confidence in their activities if their friendly sympathies to one of the parties to the conflict were clearly traced. Bryza added that the EU should become the third member of the Minsk Group along with Russia and the US.

“It’s difficult for the Minsk Group to function in its current composition and do its job,” Bryza said.

“It’s such a positive tectonic geopolitical and geoconomic shift if Turkey-Armenia relations can normalize and if the new corridor that could connect Turkey, Armenia and Azerbaijan can be actualized,” he added.