Zakharova: Baku and Yerevan can jointly initiate the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group

The mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement has lost its relevance, Armenia and Azerbaijan can jointly initiate the dissolution of this structure. This was stated at a briefing by Maria Zakharova, Director of the Information and Press Department of the Russian Foreign Ministry.

"The mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh has lost its relevance," she said. - Consequently, all relevant structures - the Minsk Group itself, the high-level planning group and the post of personal representative of the OSCE Chairman-in-Office on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement - are subject to dissolution. We believe that the best way to make an appropriate decision in this regard is a joint proposal by Baku and Yerevan to liquidate these institutions."

The official representative of the diplomatic mission drew attention to the fact that it all started with the blocking of the work of the mentioned format by the West. "The OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs from the United States and France stopped communicating with the Russian co-chairs in February 2022 and did so proactively," Zakharova recalled. "The cessation of this communication, Armenia's recognition of Karabakh as an integral part of Azerbaijan following the Armenia-Azerbaijan-European Union-France summit, which took place on October 6, 2022 in Prague, and the drastic changes in the situation on the ground in September 2023 led to the termination of the work of the OSCE Minsk Group."