Yerevan /Mediamax/. Former U.S. OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair Matthew Bryza posted an article in Washington Post “The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is too dangerous for the U.S. to ignore”.

“I am struck by the lack of cooperation on Nagorno-Karabakh between Washington and Moscow in recent days. Rather than uniting for concerted action in the spirit of the Minsk Group, Putin has been going it alone. Perhaps he seeks to undercut any credit Vice President Biden might have garnered for invigorating the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process when he met separately with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan the day before the flare-up in violence”, Bryza writes.

He recalls that he served as the U.S. co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group from 2006 to 2009.

“My Russian counterpart, Yuri Merzlyakov, was always constructive, as were his superiors: Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov hosted the co-chairs for hours of brainstorming, while then-President Dmitry Medvedev helped push what was close to a breakthrough in 2009. Though Washington and Moscow locked horns on Russia’s invasion of Georgia in August 2008, our cooperation on Nagorno-Karabakh was as intense as our enmity regarding Georgia”, Matthew Bryza states.

“Putin is exploiting the situation through intensive diplomacy that Obama shows no interest in matching. The White House has failed even to issue an official statement. Putin has consulted repeatedly with Aliyev and Sargsyan, while Russia’s foreign and defense ministers are actively engaging their counterparts in Yerevan and Baku. As a result, on April 5 cease-fire was brokered by Russia’s military chief with his Azerbaijani and Armenian counterparts, but without direct participation by the Minsk Group co-chairs”,  Matthew Bryza notices.

“As Putin pulls Azerbaijan and Armenia away from the West in these ways, he is laying the foundation for future crises, while Washington watches”, concludes Former OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair.