ARMENIA WILL NOT BACK DECISIONS ON KARABAKH UNACCEPTABLE FOR ITS CITIZENS

Interfax
Jan 14 2009
Russia

Armenia will agree to decisions on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement
only if they are acceptable for people of the breakaway republic,
Armenian Prime Minister Tigran Sargsyan said.

"Our position is that any decision should be acceptable primarily
for Nagorno-Karabakh and its people," Sargsyan told Interfax by phone.

Asked whether Armenia could make concessions in the Nagorno- Karabakh
settlement to which the Nagorno-Karabakh people will agree, the
Armenian PM said: "I do not think that this could lead to a split in
the country because our position is that that any decision should be
acceptable primarily for Nagorno-Karabakh and its people." "From this
point of view if decisions are not acceptable for the Nagorno-Karabakh
people, they will be unacceptable for us as well. That is why given
our position this could not lead to any domestic differences and
disputes," Sargsyan said.

The Armenian PM shares the United States’ positive assessment of the
activity of the OSCE Minsk Group for the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement
and does not see any need to change the format of the talks. "I
discussed this issue with [U.S. Vice President Richard] Cheney and
[U.S. Secretary of State] Condoleezza Rice in Washington. I got a
clear answer: they think that this is the most efficient mechanism
and they comprehensively support the Minsk Group and that they have
full understanding with their Russian colleagues in the framework of
the Minsk Group," he said.

"This means that the U.S., Russian and French sides consider this
format as the most acceptable and efficient. I think that we should
agree with these assessment because they comply with ours," Sargsyan
said.