OSCE Minsk Group: An attempt to resuscitate against logic Once again about the hypocrisy of the West

Recently, the West, including the United States, has again seen making certain attempts to revive the OSCE Minsk Group, which had died, as indicated by hints in statements of Western politicians.

Although, the OSCE Minsk Group has completely outlived its usefulness as an absolutely destructive structure, which was inactive throughout the years of long-term occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia and, consequently, had not advanced the Armenian-Azerbaijani settlement for a single step.

And to a greater extent, this was facilitated by the fact that none of the mediating countries in the format of the OSCE Minsk Group, be it France, the United States or Russia, exerted due pressure on Yerevan force it to comply with the UN Security Council resolutions demanding the withdrawal the Armenian military formations from Azerbaijani territories.

On the contrary, the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs turned into ordinary tourists, only occasionally making unaddressed declarative statements about the need to resolve the Karabakh conflict, and even through mutual concessions. That is, without divulging into the essence of the conflict and thereby putting the occupier and the victim on the same level. We can state that the OSCE Minsk Group dug its own grave by its inaction, although on the basis of the UN Charter and UN Security Council resolutions, it was mandated from the international community to put an end to the occupation and Armenian aggression.

The nail in the coffin of the formal existence of the OSCE Minsk Group was actually driven by the changed alignment of forces in the region after Azerbaijan independently resolved the Karabakh problem by militarily in the Second Karabakh War in November 2020.

On December 12, 2020, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev did not fail to declare it to the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs.

“…It was your idea to come here. And I can repeat this again in front of the cameras: I did not invite the Minsk Group to visit. However, when I was informed that the co-chairs of the Minsk Group wanted to come, I did not mind. Maybe, you have something to tell me. If you want to do it in front of the cameras, speak up. If you don't want, I'll tell them to leave. As you wish. Come on, I'm listening to you,” the president of Azerbaijan said.

In 2022, after the start of the Russian-Ukrainian war and confrontation between Russia and the West, even the formal existence of the OSCE Minsk Group became impossible. Moscow even spoke out against Paris and Washington, accusing them of the final death of the half-dead OSCE Minsk Group.

The statement of death of the Minsk Group was confirmed in November 2022 by the special representative of the State Department for negotiations in the South Caucasus, Philip Reeker, during a hearing in the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US Senate. However, at the same time, Reeker noted that, the United States considers that the very mandate of the OSCE Minsk Group is still useful, even though the interaction of the co-chairs had ceased.

“The Minsk Group is not functioning. The mandate, the goals remain,” Reeker said, hinting at the possibility of resurrecting an essentially dead structure.

Now, apparently, certain forces in the West are trying to pull the decayed corpse of the OSCE Minsk Group out of the coffin. It is quite obvious that this can be regarded as a manifestation of the hypocrisy and cynicism of the West, which in words supports the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, but in reality is trying to play along with Armenia, which to this day, does not leave the illusions associated with the OSCE Minsk Group and, at every opportunity, shows its desire transfer the negotiation process into the hands of the "co-chairs" in order to chat it up, thereby postponing the time for signing the peace treaty.

By the way, an interesting point. Russia and the West are now literally at odds, there are even threats of an exchange of nuclear strikes. But surprisingly, all their contradictions and grievances are instantly forgotten when it comes to Armenia and the settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict. That is, France, the United States and Russia are ready to resume cooperation within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, even regardless of the conflict in Ukraine. Interesting, don't you think?

All this only once again confirms the hypocritical policy of the West towards Azerbaijan and the presence of double standards that our country has faced during almost 30 years of occupation. Exactly, we see the same approach in the issue of Ukraine. The West demands from Kyiv to fight to the last soldier, but at the same time, artificially delays the delivery of much-needed weapons to Ukraine, especially now, at the time of counter-offensive operations.

Of course, all these attempts to revive the OSCE Minsk Group are doomed to failure. Baku will not participate in these dirty games of Russia and the West. This is the principled position of the Azerbaijani leadership, which is fully supported by the Azerbaijani public. As President Aliyev clearly said: “We have already said goodbye to the OSCE Minsk Group.”