President Serzh Sargsyan, who is participating at the Second Global Forum Against the Crime of Genocide convened at the K. Demirjian Sport and Concert Compound, during the break between the sessions conversed with the participants of the Forum, exchanged views with the delegates, and presented Armenia’s views regarding a number of issues.

Speaking about the difficulties posed by the geographical location of our country, President Sargsyan said in particular, “It is true that two out of Armenia’s four neighbors are conducted hostile policy toward our country. Nevertheless, since independence we have adopted a multi-vector policy trying to develop relations with all our neighbors. Even with Turkey, we were the initiators of reestablishing the relations without preconditions. It was an initiative which revealed to the world why the Armenian-Turkish is closed, who is setting preconditions and why the Turkish-Azeri “one nation- two states” formula is a real factor. Those who until now have not yet comprehended the political essence of that formula, in their calculations have missed an important element. We are a peaceful nation. We hate no one and do not build our relations on animosity or hatred toward anyone. Our people don’t like to fight but we do it when we are forced to. We are forced to fight for one simple reason: we want to live on our own land and we want to be free.”

The President spoke also about Russia’s role in the resolution of the Nagorno Karabakh issue. “Yesterday I received Minister of Foreign Affairs Lavrov, who was on a visit in Yerevan. I presented to him our position regarding the situation which has been established after the large-scale offensive unleashed by Azerbaijan. Russia as the OSCE Minsk Group member state is actively involved in the Nagorno Karabakh peace process. For years, we were a responsible member of that process, were trying to find mutually acceptable solutions, were trying to be constructive. Obviously, the blunt violation by Azerbaijan of the 1994 Ceasefire Agreement has thrown the peace process far back. We were convinced that the problem could be solved through exclusively peaceful means, however today the situation is different. Ceasefire and supporting agreements have been violated, five statements of the Presidents of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair states – US, France, and Russia – were violated, bloodchilling war crimes were committed, and now we are telling everyone – point your finger to the aggressor, expose the aggressor so that lessons are learned, so that we can move forward,” said President Serzh Sargsyan.