GAGIK MINASYAN: NKR CAN’T BE PART OF AZERBAIJAN

PanARMENIAN.Net
18.01.2010 17:32 GMT+04:00

/PanARMENIAN.Net/ NKR’s involvement in negotiations will bring Azeri
society back to reality, otherwise it society will keep expecting
something which can’t possibly happen, RPA parliamentary group member
Gagik Minasyan said.

As he told a news conference in Yerevan, NKR’s direct participation in
negotiations will make it clear to Azeri public that Karabakh can’t
be part of Azerbaijan. "It’s Azeri authorities fault that the public
in the country is up till now out of touch with reality," the MP noted.

The Nagorno Karabakh Republic (NKR) is a de facto independent republic
located in the South Caucasus, bordering by Azerbaijan to the north
and east, Iran to the south, and Armenia to the west.

After the Soviet Union established control over the area, in 1923
it formed the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the
Azerbaijan SSR. In the final years of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan
launched an ethnic cleansing which resulted in the Karabakh War that
was fought from 1991 to 1994.

Since the ceasefire in 1994, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several
regions of Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the
control of Nagorno Karabakh defence army.

Armenia and Azerbaijan have since been holding peace talks mediated
by the OSCE Minsk Group.