EXPERT NOTES DIFFERENCES OF OPINION BETWEEN ARMENIAN AND SEPARATIST LEADERS

Arminfo
8 Mar 06

Yerevan, 7 March: If Nagorny Karabakh President Arkadiy Gukasyan
continues to insist on Armenia leaving the peace talks, Armenian
President Robert Kocharyan may face the lot of Eduard Shevardandze,
says an Armenian MP and political scientist, (?Hmayak Hovhanissyan).

Kocharyan’s advent into power was due the wish of the international
political centers to have one man representing Armenia and Nagornyy
Karabakh and thereby to weaken the position of the Armenian side. Now
the Armenian and Nagornyy Karabakh presidents are showing strong
differences over the future of the negotiating process and if Gukasyan
sticks to his position Kocharyan may prove no longer necessary for
international political centers.

Hovhannissyan says that the positive tendencies for giving priority
to the self-determination principle may serve Nagornyy Karabakh only
if Armenia can restore the membership of the Budapest Summit 1994.