"ARTSAKH OFFICIAL SHOULD NOT BE ALLOWED TO BECOME RA PRESIDENT," SAYS RA EX-PRIME MINISTER

Noyan Tapan
Jun 12 2007

YEREVAN, JUNE 12, NOYAN TAPAN. In Kiro Manoyan’s words, ARF responsible
for Hay Dat Office, the last meeting of the presidents of Armenia
and Azerbaijan showed that "at least for a while" no serious progress
will be recorded on the Karabakh conflict settlement. As he mentioned
on June 12 during the debate with Hrant Bagratian, the RA ex-Prime
Minister, the course of the negotiations speaks about the fact that
the recent optimistic announcements of the negotiator sides "are not
so real."

K. Manoyan believes that the Armenian side should think about
changing the current format of Armenia-Azerbaijan for productive
negotiations. As K. Manoyan mentioned, serious changes are possible in
the negotiation process as a result of the presidential elections to
be held in Nagorno Karabakh this summer. "The new president of Artsakh
can declare the necessity of the republic of Nagorno Karabakh’s (NKR)
participation in the negotiations," he explained.

In H. Bagratian’s words, the conditions of the negotiation process
have got worse and worse for the Armenian side since 1997. And today,
he underlined, a document has been discussed, by which, in essence,
the stage-by-stage variant of the conflict settlement is suggested,
as the problem of Nagorno Karabakh’s status clarification is not
mentioned in it as a primary one at all. The currently suggested
variant of the conflict settlement, in H. Bagratian’s words, does
not differ from the 1997 approach at all. " In 1997 the Karabakh side
made part of the format at least. And after that a person came, who
declared that he presents both the interests of Armenia, as well as
those of Karabakh," said the RA ex-Prime Minister. H. Bagratian also
added that "in general, we should not have let the Artsakh official
become RA President, as that does harm to the negotiations."

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress