Pan Armenian News

ARKADY GHUKASIAN: OPULENCE OF STATE DOES NOT DEPEND ON ITS SIZE

08.07.2005 06:12

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ Goran Lennmarker’s position is a political but not legal
approach, NKR President Arkady Ghukasian stated when commenting on the
statement by OSCE PA special representative for the Caucasus Goran
Lennmarker, who said, `We can’t allow formation of a big number on the
territory of the Caucasus. There should be three strong and respected states
in the region’, De Facto news agency reports. According to A. Ghukasian,
perceiving the South Caucasus as a part of Europe, Goran Lennmarker sees
threat in acknowledging `dwarf states’. Pursuing such a policy the Europeans
should have initiated struggle against Monaco or Luxembourg as well, he
noted. `In my opinion the opulence of a state is not directly connected with
its size. The ability of the people to bear responsibility for its fate,
level of its self-organization, adequacy to progress can be recognized as
real criteria. Nagorno Karabakh does meet these criteria’, he added. When
commenting on Terry Davis’s statement that `Nagorno Karabakh is a part of
Azerbaijan and the issue should be settled within the territorial integrity
of this state’, Arkady Ghukasian said that principle of territorial
integrity both of the NKR and Azerbaijan can come into force only after a
peaceful agreement is signed. `Our two republics have formed on the area of
former soviet territorial entity and should settle the issue as independent
states’, the NKR President resumed.