 I have something to confess, we have worked hard on this session to have five countries represented on this session, including all three South Caucasus states. But for various reasons, it was not, unfortunately, possible. But we have two best speakers with us, our now very good friend, Roman Vasilenko. He was with us last year and our new guest, Vahan Kostanian, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia. And you know, Mr. Kostanian, last year after our session, the first question coming from our audience was about Nagorno-Pakarabakh. But unfortunately, we did answer it as we could, but this year we have a real opportunity to know more. About the situation today and the perspective from the first hand. But I would like to start with the question about what we have just heard by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Mitra Kuleba. I would have your reaction to what Minister Kuleba said. How do we see the current situation in Ukraine, on the ground, the current and common risks? What if the West no longer has the will to support Ukraine because of Ukraine fatigue and the multiplication of tensions inside conflict and wars outside included Middle East? What can be the end of the war in Ukraine and what if Ukraine loses the war? The question is not the taboo now. What consequences, what impact on your country, on your region and on global balance? We will start with Mr. Vestilenko, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Kazakhstan. Thank you very much. Is it working? No. Not sure? No. It is working now. Yes. Thank you very much and I'm delighted to be here again. Thank you for inviting us. Well, I had a friend for many years, a journalist, and he told me to never answer a question that begins with what if, because I mean speculating is an ungratifying kind of job. But what I would like to say is that of course it is an extremely sorrow and painful thing to watch and to feel in your heart. It's a tragedy that is taking place, that continues to take place for more than a year and a half now. We as Kazakhstan, a peace-loving country, a country that doesn't have problematic relations with any country, we naturally want the solution as soon as possible. We are prepared to help to serve as a negotiating platform if Russia and Ukraine would want our services. We maintain relations with both Russia and Ukraine. So we keep the bridges open, keep the doors open. We think the solution can be only found on the basis of the United Nations Charter and the respect for the fundamental principles of this Charter, including the respect for the territorial integrity and sovereignty of states, including, in this case, Ukraine. Yes, thank you very much. Thank you. I believe to, first we should understand what happened and when it started. The very principle of user force was violated. And it was not violated first time back in 2021, February. The international community, we, the South Caucasus, witnessed the violation of this very principle yet a year ago, before the war in Ukraine started in 2020, in our region, in Nagorno-Karabakh. And unfortunately, back to that time, many of the international partners were silent and they were both sided, let's say, when it came to the situation and not putting clear and direct calls that the user force is not acceptable. And this became a precedent. And if something is, can be tolerated in case of one country, probably the others can think or interpret the situation as a green light for them to act in violation of UN Charter as well. Nobody knows better the horror of the war than us. We witnessed it in back in 90s. We witnessed it in 2020. We are still witnessing the consequences of it, of the recent military aggression of September 19, 2020, at the result of which Nagorno-Karabakh and 100,000 people were forced to the place and basically Nagorno-Karabakh is ethnically cleansed. But we do believe that at some point the word order should be established in a way that the principles can be equally projected to everyone and everyone should adhere to these principles. And violation of principle without any geopolitical calculations should be equally raised and should be equally rejected by international community. Okay. If I can continue with you, Mr. Kostanian, the situation in South Kukas changed dramatically in September. Nagorno-Karabakh came under the control of Azerbaijan as a result of military operation and the unrecognized Nagorno-Karabakh Republic declared its self-dissolution by the end of the year. You said that 100,000 of Armenians were pushed to leave their homeland in dramatic conditions and moved to Armenia. And some person from the leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh were arrested and Russian peacekeepers were deployed in Karabakh and on the Armenian Azerbaijan border was remained helpless as international community. What's the situation today in Nagorno-Karabakh? What's the future scenario? What are prospects for a settlement? Is a peace agreement possible? Because Nikol Pashinyan said many times that he hoped to have the peace settlement before the end of the year and unfortunately it was not possible in Granada because the other counterpart didn't come to this meeting. Or there is another scenario of a further escalation, further aggression this time of the sovereign territory of Armenia, especially around so-called Zangizur corridor that passed by Sunik province. What for you is the future scenario, the most probable scenario? Thank you for the question. Armenia was and remains interested in establishing good neighborly relations with our neighbors, not only with Azerbaijan but also with Turkey, with whom we have, with both of them, we don't have diplomatic relations, we have closed borders. And for a landlocked country as an Armenia, it is very difficult economically as well to have a situation that we are currently now. But and also taking into account the fact that the global security architecture and in particular European security architecture is deteriorated, we understand the very necessity to normalize the relations with our neighbors. We are not going to move anywhere from this region and we're going to have the same neighbors. So the political will of the government of Armenian prime minister of Armenia remains to normalize relations with Azerbaijan. And we do believe that the principles which were indicated in the Granada statement, which are the following. It is the full respect to sovereignty and territorial integrity of both states, meaning Armenia and Azerbaijan, the clear understanding of the borderline that we have taking into account the Almaty declaration which was signed back in 1991 and according to which the administrative borders of former Soviet republics become interstate borders. And third, this is to organize the opening of all communications in our region based on the respect of sovereignty and jurisdiction of the states which we are passing through and on the principles of equality and reciprocity. And in this regard to somehow shape this idea on opening of the communications, prime minister just a few days ago presented a vision that we have which is called the crossroads for peace. The so-called Zangezer corridor, which you are mentioning, first I would kindly ask not to use the term because in its sense it contains in extraterritorial claims. Towards Republic of Armenia. And if our neighbors are really sincere when they say that they don't have any extraterritorial claims when it comes to both opening of communications, when we see that the crossroads of peace is a doable and realistic project which can bring benefits to all the states in our region on the one hand. On the other hand the economic ties, the logistics ties can secure the lasting peace in our region. And coming to the issue of people of Nagorno-Karabakh as I already mentioned we had a forced displacement of these people from their very homeland, where they were indigenous people living. And unfortunately regardless we cause that Armenia was raising and alarming the international community since December when the Lachin corridor closed that this is a planned action of ethnic cleansing of Nagorno-Karabakh. The international community and especially the UN Security Council where four sessions were organized didn't adequately react to the situation. And we have the fact of ethnic cleansing and probably everyone each of us had its share of guilt when it comes to the fortune of these people. But I do believe that there is still a chance that all the rights of these people including the right to return can be addressed. But this means and this requires a bit more effort from international community because without a joint effort in general the protection of rights and the protection of UN Charter is not possible. Thank you very much. Of course it was the question for Armenia maybe you can explain the official position of Kazakhstan on this conflict. Thank you. Well we naturally hope that Armenia and Azerbaijan can advance in their peace negotiations and that they can conclude the peace agreement in good faith. And I would pick up on something my colleague just said about the unlocking of communications in the region. This will not only benefit Armenia this will benefit a much much wider region meaning Central Asia and Europe because of course we are eagerly all of us are now working on the development of the so-called middle corridor and of course the stability of South Caucasus the unlocking of communication lines in South Caucasus will benefit so many players and it has so many so much repercussions way beyond South Caucasus so that's why we're praying hoping for the two parties to achieve a peace treaty settlement of course respecting territorial integrity of both states. Thank you very much if I may. I guess this is that was very important to touch on the issues of opening of the communications and here Armenia wants to be understood by our colleagues that we are not an obstacle for connecting Europe Central Asia and Far Asia and connecting North to South connecting to GCC countries for example we are the ones who are interested in it but to have lasting pragmatic and realistic solutions we need we should adhere to these four principles which I just mentioned this is sovereignty jurisdiction equality and reciprocity and understand the same all of this we clearly understand that in order to be competitive on logistic change we need to do simplifications and we are ready to simplify the processes in order to attract more cargo more vehicles more people flow through the southern territory of Armenia and I do believe that all our partners also Central Asian partners should have their role on convincing or bringing to the idea that these are the principles which can make the project really attractive and lasting. I wasn't in any way implying that Armenia stands in a way I was saying that the peace agreement peace treaty and the generally the establishment of the atmosphere of peace and cooperation will benefit not just yourselves but us and Europe and we believe that the opening of communication should be an important part of a possible peace treaty with Azerbaijan on the one hand on the other hand we are interested to open the land border with Turkey and to re-establish also railway communication that we had during the Soviet period. Yeah but in all respect of your sovereignty of your territorial integrity of course. I will come back to Mr. Vasilenko I would like to ask you about your relations with your main partners foreign partners your neighbors and Kazakhstan is a real master of the multi vector policy. You managed to maintain an extraordinary balance between Russia China and the West. Vladimir Putin said the last time he celebrated his last birthday with President Takaev and President Uzbek President Mirzoev and the same time recently in Berlin the chancellor Schultz and President Macron when he was in Astana these two western leaders praised Kazakhstan for to distance itself from Moscow by preventing sanctions from being circumvented. You managed to navigate in troubled waters by avoiding obstacles and your captain is very experienced. How has the war in Ukraine and Nagorno-Karabakh over the past almost two years affected the relations of your country with your great neighbors Russia, Turkey, China, the West. Are the foreign policy priorities of your country changing? How do we see how do you would like to see the role of each partner involved in the medium and long term and the balance between these partners. Thank you well we realized ever so clearly in the past year and a half that the now famous multi vector foreign policy that you mentioned is actually the only foreign policy that we as a country can pursue a country of 20 million people a neighboring one country of 1.5 billion people another country of 140 million people and a landlocked country the largest landlocked country in the world so you can only build positive mutually respectful relations with your neighbors and with with others and that's the only way forward in the past year and a half what we have seen is that the West has sort of rediscovered with great clarity the importance of Central Asia of course the relations were developing in the 30 years of our independence but it's sort of the the blinds were taken off their eyes in of policymakers in Brussels Paris Berlin London Washington and this intensification of contacts of political contacts and the strengthening of these diplomatic efforts on the on behalf of the West is very much welcome by Kazakhstan as again this is again part of the of the general equation for our foreign policy because naturally we continue to strengthen develop our cooperation with Russia with whom we share the longest continuous land border in the world 7500 kilometers and with China our two largest neighbors generally I think it's important to highlight that in our region perhaps three themes three dynamic three dynamics are taking place one is that the challenges are really aggravating as far as security is concerned and I mean primarily water security water scarcity that's a big big challenge for Central Asia climate change is another one and we heard just now from the Emirati minister that if Greenland melts even one quarter of it then the water in the oceans will raise two by two meters well in Central Asia already this climate change is twice as fast and as worse as globally and it's already creating droughts it's creating problems etc then there are things such as a lack of agreement between countries such as Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan over their borders so and then there is a challenges set of challenges emanating from an unstable situation in Afghanistan which which we should always also not forget about so that's one trend the second trend that we are seeing is the growing desire by five Central Asian countries to work together and you may have seen that we have now held five meetings of the five leaders also this Central Asia plus formats have proliferated like mushrooms under after the rain now there are 11 such platforms ranging from the one with the EU to one with Germany one with the United States to one with Russia China etc but the third the third challenge the third dynamics that we see is this growing engagement by the outside partners so it's not just the West it's also Russia it's also China it's also Turkey that really really intensified their efforts to be present in Central Asia to develop cooperation to invest to if you will to pull ourselves towards themselves frankly speaking we in Central Asia do not like this kind of a great game speak a great game terminology again suffices to mention that a few days ago Bloomberg published a story headlined Macron lands in Putin's backyard it created such a backlash in our society and people really are in arms against Bloomberg now saying look at least in all the reasons why Kazakhstan cannot be and should not be called Putin's backyard or Xi Jinping's backyard for that matter because this denies the agency for the country denies sovereignty but it also blinds the thinking among the policymakers so we are in favor of great gain for all in Central Asia we think that there is enough room for the constructive engagement by all parties and you should see how dynamic these relations are developing with the West with Russia with China with Turkey by the way the Turkish president the asery president are in Astana today for the 10th anniversary summit of the Organization of Turkey States so these all kind of formats are proliferating and Central Asia Kazakhstan including are very much engaged as players in this game if you will thank you very much Armenia moves in my sense more and more in the same way of diversification and multi vector policy for example Armenia's military and security relations have always been very close to Russia the 102nd Russia military base is located in Ghumri the Russian arms sales by the way last year Russia didn't deliver it the weapon already paid for if I understand properly and Armenia's border with Iran and with Turkey are protected by Russian border service at the same time Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recently did somebody's strong declaration he spoke of the need to diversify security relations because Russia failed to fulfill his allied obligations during the escalation on the Armenian Azerbaijan border and recently the Armenian president said on France to TV channels that the country need a new military partner besides Russia and France announced in October that it will supply arms to Armenia so what about you diversification of the foreign policy to close to more closer to to the west less closer to the Russia what kind of balance are you seeking for it's not about getting closer to someone in contradiction with our relations with our partners but given the situation and given the facts that we went through during the past years we understood that the need of diversifying our relations and having security component in the relations with our partners of ours is also very important unfortunately in 2022 September when Armenia's sovereign territory was attacked and was occupied Russia and other CSTO partners of ours didn't have even a political will to state that the territorial integrity of Armenia was violated but on on the contrast European Union and EU member states came with very strong statements but not only statements and also actions the deployment of European EU monitoring mission to Armenia, Azerbaijan interstate border and in the mandate of mission was clearly mentioned that it's deployed to Armenia Azerbaijan interstate border meaning that there cannot be excuses that the border is not delimited etc etc what we heard from our CSTO colleagues this was an example how we were trying to diversify our security or not to diversify but to recreate and rebuild a new security architecture for our country on the other hand you're correct we are diversifying the markets from where we are buying weapons which are for defensive purpose only and France is one of the partners India is another partner of ours and we are determined to cooperate in the sphere with our colleagues as well bearing in mind that we have the right to protect our sovereign territorial integrity and we don't have any intention to attack attack any of our neighbors thank you very much I have many questions but I see time is running so I prefer to take two very quick questions from our audience for two very quick answers please yes or no questions if you don't have any questions I have a lot of questions I don't see Andres okay because we have just three minutes and any questions I would like to summarize briefly at the end of our session can you name please three major challenges for your country today on the national regional and global level who will to start well on the national level it says always ensuring a sustainable economic growth in the very challenging environment thankfully we have a positive growth of four percent something like this year but we are not complacent and we need to make sure that this economic growth is spread and the benefits benefit as as wide the scope of the population as possible on the regional level I already mentioned several things but perhaps I should highlight that the biggest challenge that we face on the regional the biggest opportunity perhaps challenge slash opportunity lies in the world connectivity and this is the buzzword right now we want it to be developed we see this Belt and Road global gateway PGI by G7 all as complementary and as benefiting not just our region but all these outside players on the global level I think the biggest challenge is how to make sure that the United Nations system again works our president addressed this issue in numerous statements including at the United Nations General Assembly stating that the role of the General Assembly needs to be strengthened as the most representative body and the Security Council needs to be reformed and the voice of the middle powers of which Kazakhstan is one should be strengthened thank you thank you very much Mr Kastanyan I guess the challenges are pretty the same for national level this is to continue the ambitious democratic reform agenda that we started in 2018 after the velvet revolution and to and these reforms will and are supporting the economic growth of my country on the regional level of course this is the normalization of relations with our neighbors and opening regional communications and on international level this is to make the international tools and mechanisms adequately working without any reluctance because sometimes the geopolitical prevails and in that case some of the regions are under the shadow and the presence in this panel in the audience and is a clear identification of another identification or example of this because during the panel of very honorable minister Kuleba the audience was full during the panel this panel when we are talking about the challenges in Central Asia and South Caucasus and I do believe that these regions are not less important the whole is half empty although it's half full as well and there were no questions thank you very much we are perfect with our timing and I would like really to thank Sir Aman Vasilenko deputy minister for in the face of Kazakhstan and deputy minister for in the face of Armenia thank you so much for this substantial conversation