Armenia`s application to OSCE Minsk Group response to demands by  France and USA, political scientist says 

ArmInfo.Armenia's application to the OSCE  Minsk Group "for peace" is a response to demands by France and the  USA. Paris and Washington explicitly presented the demands: an  Armenian-Azerbaijani peace agreement must be signed exclusively under  the OSCE Minsk Group's auspices, Andrias Ghukasyan, Chairman of the  Constructive Party of Armenia, said in an interview with ArmInfo.  

In response to the proposals published on March 14, Armenia's foreign  office stated: 

"Armenia has responded to the recent peace proposals of Azerbaijan  and has applied to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship to organize  negotiations on a peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan  based on the UN Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and  Political Rights and the Helsinki Final Act."

"Yerevan has until recently been postponing negotiations over a peace  agreement with Baku under the pretext of resolving the post-war  problems, to create the necessary conditions for discussing the  Azerbaijan-proposed agenda. So the application to the OSCE Minsk  Group co-chairmanship is evidence of Armenia's readiness for  negotiations exclusively within the format proposed by France and the  USA," Mr Ghukasyan said. 

As regards Azerbaijan's real goals behind the five-point proposals,  he singled out Yerevan's recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan.  So the proposals do not contain anything new given the fact that it  has been Baku's political objective since the Nagorno-Karabakh  conflict broke out.  

With the Armenian government's current potential, Mr Ghukasyan does  not rule out the implementation of the point on "mutual recognition  of respect for the sovereignty, territorial integrity, inviolability  of internationally recognized borders and political independence of  each other." He highlights the importance of such points in  international agreements, stressing that any peaceful settlement  implies a need for a decision on the Artsakh people's status. 

"At this point it should be noted that almost all the proposals by  the Minsk Group provided for similar processes. Armenia cannot  replace Artsakh in this process. And even if Yerevan, for some  reasons, dares to implement a policy of drawing up documents in  defiance of the will and interests of Artstakh, neither France nor  the USA or Armenia will support it. Such a policy could only be  supported in Azerbaijan, Turkey and, possibly, in Russia," Mr  Ghukasyan said.