The official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry, Maria Zakharova, has stated that the OSCE Council of Ministers of Foreign Affairs is authorized to make a formal decision regarding the fate of the Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh.
This statement comes in response to questions about the future of the Minsk Group in light of recent developments in the region. Zakharova explained that the authorization for the Minsk Group was granted in the final documents of an additional meeting of the CSCE Council (Conference on Security and Cooperation in Europe) on March 24, 1992. The permanent format of co-chairs for the Minsk Group, consisting of Russia, the USA, and France, was established on December 6, 1994.
However, in February 2022, the French and American co-chairs, without consulting the OSCE Ministerial Council, decided to withdraw from interactions with the Russian co-chair, effectively disrupting the Minsk Group's functioning. Thus, according to Zakharova, the United States and France grossly violated the responsibilities assigned to them on behalf of the OSCE and, for the sake of their own interests, consigned to oblivion the needs and aspirations of the states and peoples of the region.
According to her, “solely through the fault of Western co-chairmanship, the largely unique mechanism of the Minsk Group stopped working long before the publication of the decree on September 28” on its dissolution.
“Washington and Paris have not yet dared to tell us the reasons for their blatant demarche,” Zakharova said.
Zakharova also noted that the formal decision on the fate of the Minsk Group is authorized to be made by the OSCE Ministerial Council, the international institution that created it.
