ARKADY GUKASYAN: ARMENIA CAN RECOGNIZE NAGORNO KARABAKH INDEPENDENCE AT ANY MOMENT

Regnum, Russia
July 3 2007

Armenia at any moment can recognize independence of Nagorno
Karabakh, but it will not become solution to the problem, Nagorno
Karabakh President Arkady Gyukasyan while giving a lecture at the
Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan today. According to him, there
is no such force in Armenia that opposes NKR independence, and if
Yerevan and Stepanakert make a decision, Karabakh will be recognized
as an independent state immediately, a REGNUM correspondent informs.

Arkady Gukasyan informed the students that in 1988, when the Karabakh
movement started, a question of the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomy leaving
the Azerbaijani SSR and joining the Armenian SSR was posed. Later,
taking into account the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed and
Karabakh was on the verge of war, it was decided to take the way of
independence. "It was a compromise decision – not to make Karabakh
joining either Armenia or Karabakh. The decision was admissible
for the international community," Arkady Gukasyan said. Besides,
by this decision Stepanakert tried to relieve Armenia of additional
complications and troubles, he noted.

"Why does Ilham Aliyev want to persuade the world that the conflict
is between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but not with Nagorno Karabakh?

Because in Baku there is an illusion that Armenia is aggressor that
occupied Azerbaijani territories. Moreover, Azerbaijan hopes that
the international community would take sanctions," the NKR president
announced.

According to him, if Nagorno Karabakh joins the Armenia-Azerbaijan
format of talks, Baku will become the aggressor from the political
point of view. "Nagorno Karabakh declared independence; as a result of
the war imposed on it by Azerbaijan, it won the fight liberating its
territories and seven then nearby Karabakh areas, so the status quo now
is a result of the Azerbaijani aggression," Arkady Gukasyan concluded.