Moscow considers “counterproductive” attempts to dismantle existing conflict-settlement mechanisms

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Official representative of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Russian Mikhail Kamynin commented on the outcomes of discussion in UN General Assembly the issue of introducing a new agenda item in the UN GA 61 session on delayed conflicts on GUAM space (Georgia, Ukraine, Azerbaijan, and Moldavia). “We have from the start been against politicizing this issue and involving the General Assembly,” Kamynin said. We in Russia consider attempts to dismantle the existing mechanisms of resolving the Nagorno Karabakh, Georgian-Abkhazian, Georgian-Ossetian, and Transdnestr conflicts counterproductive, Mikhail Kamynin said. He said that searching solutions to the mentioned conflicts would be facilitated by determined and effective work within the existing negotiation formats.

Kamynin said that during discussion of the issue at the GA session, Russia spoke against including the ‘frozen conflicts’ item in the session agenda. The majority of the General Committee members did not oppose the suggestion. In this situation, the session chair took decision not to include the issue in the session agenda. The General Committee thereby declined the request of GUAM member countries to discuss the issue of the delayed conflicts at the session.

Nevertheless, it has been reported on September 14 that the issue was forced into the session agenda.