NAGORNO-KARABAKH PEACEFUL SETTLEMENT AGREEMENT CANNOT NOT CONSIDER KARABAKH PEOPLE’S POSITION: LAVROV
Tert.am
16:32 ~U 14.01.10
During today’s press conference, Armenian journalists asked Russian
Minister of Foreign Affairs Sergey Lavrov whether Russia’s interests in
the energy sector (that is, Russia’s cooperation with Turkey in that
sphere) could be more important than the Nagorno-Karabakh people’s
right to self-determination.
"They can’t be," Lavrov responded laconically. He then turned his
attention to the issue of connecting the Nagorno-Karabakh issue with
Armenian-Turkish relations.
"We see no connection whatsoever between the settlement of the Karabakh
conflict and the normalization of Armenian-Turkish relations.
It’s not right to look for any sort of tie between them," said Lavrov.
The Russian foreign minister also added that, in the issue of resolving
the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, the Russian side, along with the other
two Minsk Group co-chair countries, strives to assist the two parties
to reach an agreement that will stem from the interests of both the
Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples.
Continuing, Lavrov said that when talk turns to the current stage of
the co-chairs’ efforts in assisting the two state leaders to agree
to those principles on which the conflict settlement is to be based,
that means that those principles will also become grounds from a
legal perspective for the preparation of a peace agreement mandated
to be put into effect.
"We are also working from that [perspective] which, in the process
of preparing the agreement, cannot not take into account the Karabakh
people’s position. As for how that will be carried out, that’s still a
subject of discussion. However, for me, it’s clear," concluded Lavrov.