"ACHIEVEMENT OF SARGSIAN-ALIEV MEETING IS DECISION ON CONTINUING NEGOTIATION PROCESS," SHAVARSH KOCHARIAN AND LEVON MELIK-SHAHNAZARIAN BELIEVE

Noyan Tapan

Ju ne 9, 2008

YEREVAN, JUNE 9, NOYAN TAPAN. The important achievement of the
June 6 meeting of Serge Sargsian, the President of the Republic of
Armenia, and Ilham Aliev, the President of Azerbaijan, according to
Shavarsh Kocharian, the Head of the National Democratic Party, was
that the parties agreed to continue the negotiations concerning the
Karabakh issue. As the Leader of national Democratic Party stated at
the press conference, which was held on June 9, irrespective of the
fact that Azerbaijan recently wanted to make a demarch against the
OSCE Minsk Group, to move the problem to the UN tribune and to make
the approaches existing in the negotiation process more in favour of
Azerbaijan, no such things happened. "In Iran the Presidents agreed
to continue to negotiate on the basis of the principles of the Madrid
meeting," Shavarsh Kocharian said. He stressed that, in general, the
expectations of the Armenian side cannot be great from the meetings
of the representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan as far as Azerbaijan
understands the yielding of Artsakh by the Republic of Armenia when
saying "compromises" and makes bellicose statements speaking from
positions of force.

Agreeing to the the above-mentioned observations of Shavarsh Kocharian,
political-scientist Levon Melik-Shahnazarian as well stressed that
the main achievement of the Sargsian-Aliev meeting is to continue the
negotiations from the current point. He reminded that when Ilham Aliev
met the Armenian side in the status of the President for the first
time, he declared that everything should be started from zero. "No
such thing happened now and that speaks about the strong positions
of the Republic of Armenia," the political scientist mentioned. In
his conviction, however, the Nagorno Karabakh problem will sooner or
later be settled not through negotiations but in a military way.

At the request of journalists Shavarsh Kocharian referred to the
policy conducted by RA first President Levon Ter-Petrosian with regard
to the Karabakh issue. The Leader of the National Democratic Party
reminded that Levon Petrosian said in his interview with the Russian
"Komsomoldkaya pravda" newspaper in 1992 that the only way of the
regulation of the problem is the inclusion of the Republic of Nagorno
Karabakh in the structure of Azerbaijan with the self-gevernment
principle.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress