ARMENIAN PRESIDENT HIGHLIGHTS BREAKAWAY REGION’S RIGHT TO SELF-DETERMINATION

Public Television of Armenia
March 23 2010

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan has said that his major task is
to ensure the security of the Armenian population in Azerbaijan’s
breakaway region of Nagornyy Karabakh.

"I am looking for solutions that will provide the population of
Nagornyy Karabakh with an opportunity to develop securely on its
historical territory. However, belligerent statements are being
voiced in our region as well, while hostility and mutual distrust
are deepening. Based on this, I recently publicly offered Azerbaijan
to sign an agreement not to use force and not to threaten to use it,
which will provide an opportunity for establishing certain stability
and shape a certain atmosphere of confidence," Sargsyan said at
a joint news conference with his Syrian counterpart in Damascus,
Armenian Public TV reported.

"In fact, by rejecting our proposal, Azerbaijan ignores this very
important principle of international law. This cannot lead to anything
good. Such a situation existed in the early 1990s when we said that the
Karabakh issue should be settled peacefully, but Azerbaijan eventually
resorted to aggression, and now we have the situation that we have,"
Sargsyan said.

In his recent interview with Euronews TV, the Armenian president
offered Azerbaijan to sign an agreement not to use force in the
Karabakh settlement. The self-determination of the people of Nagornyy
Karabakh is the priority for the Armenian side, he said.

During his visit to Syria, Sargsyan also said that Azerbaijan is
the only country in the world that opposes the normalization of
Armenian-Turkish ties.

Speaking at an official dinner with his Syrian counterpart, Sargsyan
emphasized that the Armenian community in Syria had taken shape
"as a result of the Armenian genocide which was carried out in the
Ottoman Empire in 1915". He added that the Armenian community in Syria
managed to integrate into Syrian society and maintain its identity,
Armenian Public TV reported.

For his part, Syrian President Bashar Al-Asad called for regional
cooperation and greater efforts to overcome disagreements. "We all
live in a common geopolitical area of special significance, in which
the interests of major international forces clash with each other.

This doubly obliges us to cooperate with each other, combine our
efforts, understand each other both in minor things and important
geopolitical issues and overcome and review all contradictions and
disagreements," he said.

"We, in Syria, believe that dialogue and mutual understanding between
the countries of this region, as well as respect for the interests
of each state are the best way of solving existing problems," Al-Asad
told the news conference.

From: Emil Lazarian | Ararat NewsPress