West is forcing Armenia and Azerbaijan to mediate for settlement of conflicts: Belousov

The course being pursued by NATO and the European Union toward confrontation with Russia has been fueling tensions in Georgia as well as in relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Russian Defense Minister Andrey Belousov said.

 

"Some members of the Alliance have been seeking to strengthen their positions in [South] Caucasus in order to get access to resources of the Caspian Sea and direct access to Central Asia. Protests are being sponsored in Georgia which is being forced to take active anti-Russian measures," Belousov said, addressing a meeting of the Council of Defense Ministers of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO) in Almaty.

 

Also, mediation services are being aggressively imposed on Armenia and Azerbaijan, he said. "Proposals are being made to sign a peace treaty exclusively at Western venues and to their dictates," he added.

 

According to the Russian defense chief, plans by Washington and Brussels to include Russia’s Armenian partners in the sphere of their interests under the pretext of efforts to enhance security are "of particular concern." The policy course being pursued by the North Atlantic Alliance and the EU toward confrontation with Russia has been fueling tensions in a number of regions of the CSTO’s collective security, he concluded.