The Minsk Group de facto ceased to exist after the start of the war in Ukraine, political analyst Tigran Grigoryan stated.
“The OSCE Minsk Group co-chair countries — Russia, France, and the United States — stopped calling their representatives co-chairs of the Minsk Group. I recall that during this period, one of the Western co-chairs visited Armenia. A small meeting with journalists and experts was organized, and the embassy of that country, which arranged the meeting, asked the participants to use the term ‘special envoy’ or ‘special adviser’ in their publications. At the same time, the parties accused each other of the de facto dissolution of the Minsk Group: the U.S. and France claimed that Russia no longer wished to cooperate in this format, while Russia insisted otherwise. It is difficult to determine whose statements were closer to the truth, but the fact is that the OSCE Minsk Group and the institution of co-chairmanship de facto ceased to exist,” the expert emphasized.
Following the end of the 44-day war, the Azerbaijani side began declaring that “the OSCE Minsk Group is an ineffective structure that artificially dragged out the resolution of the conflict for 30 years.” Azerbaijan started taking practical propaganda steps to reinforce this position. In particular, in 2021–2022, former U.S. co-chair Richard Hoagland, who at that time worked in a pro-Azerbaijani lobbying think tank, published an article in which, heavily relying on Azerbaijani narratives, he also argued for the Minsk Group’s ineffectiveness, including during his own tenure as co-chair. He claimed that the sole purpose of the Group had been to maintain the existing status quo.
At a certain point, Baku moved from propaganda to demands, Grigoryan noted. He pointed out that Azerbaijan was confident all structures related to the Artsakh issue had to be dismantled in order to avoid problems in the future.
“From the Azerbaijani perspective, this is a logical approach: they have achieved their goal and are now trying to formally close the matter as well. But the most interesting thing is that recently, especially after the Washington meeting, when the Armenian side once again retreated from its initial position and agreed to call for the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group, we saw that high-ranking Armenian officials and government-affiliated experts also began promoting the narrative of the Minsk Group’s ineffectiveness,” he said.
Grigoryan stressed that, of course, one may discuss the effectiveness of the OSCE Minsk Group, particularly in the period before the 2020 war when active diplomacy was necessary but not pursued. However, placing the entire blame for the current situation on the mediators, when the parties themselves could not reach an agreement, is groundless and absurd:
“In essence, Pashinyan’s government refused to negotiate on the documents that were on the table. And now, post factum, blaming the OSCE Minsk Group is not serious and points to one clear trend: the Armenian authorities are increasingly using Azerbaijani narratives to justify their actions and unilateral concessions.”