VARTAN OSKANIAN: AZERBAIJAN PLAYS DIRTY GAMES
Noyan Tapan
March 31, 2008
YEREVAN, MARCH 31, NOYAN TAPAN. By trying to reject the agreements,
which have so far been reached as a result of bilateral negotiations,
and to move the Karabakh problem regulation from the OSCE Minsk Group
format to the UN, Azerbaijan is playing a dirty game, the Armenian
foreign minister Vartan Oskanian stated at the March 31 meeting
with reporters.
He expressed a negative opinion about the fact that the Azerbaijani
side rejected the meeting of the two countries’ presidents at the
NATO summit scheduled to take place in Bucharest in April. In his
words, Baku incorrectly presents the situation: it says that official
Yerevan was the initiator of the meeting. In reality the Minsk Group
co-chairs made a proposal to hold such a meeting, and the Armenian
side expressed a willingness to accept this proposal – in case of
the Azerbaijani side’s consent.
In connection with declaring March 31 as day of genocide of
Azerbaijanies by Armenians, V. Oskanian advised Azerbaijan’s
leadership not to artificially impose the idea of genocide on its
people and not to sow hatred against the Armenian people. All this is
related to Baku’s ultimate goal of military solution of the Karabakh
problem. Whereas Armenia, according to V. Oskanian, continues to
believe that there is no alternative to peaceful solution of this
problem.