Interfax - Russia & CIS Military Newswire
June 7, 2018 Thursday 4:34 PM MSK


Pashinyan ready for talks with Aliyev, but insists that Stepanakert
participate in Karabakh settlement

YEREVAN. June 7

Negotiations on the Karabakh settlement cannot be effective if the
administration of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic does
not participate in them, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

"I said that the negotiations cannot be effective as long as Artsakh
[the Armenian name for Karabakh] is not involved in them. This
approach is not news. Karabakh is a full-fledged conflict party, which
was confirmed at the SCE Budapest summit in 1994. After 1998,
representatives of Armenia also conducted negotiations on behalf of
Artsakh. They probably had their reasons for that. Robert Kocharian
[who was president of Armenia in 1998-2008] was president of Artsakh,
Serzh Sargsyan [president of Armenia in 2008-2018) was one of the
organizers of the self-defense movement and they could assume
responsibility to conduct negotiations on behalf of Artsakh,"
Pashinyan said while presenting the new government's program in the
parliament.

"I cannot do the same thing. I cannot give myself the right to conduct
negotiations on behalf of the people of Karabakh. There are no legal,
moral or political grounds for that. The people of Artsakh do not
participate in the elections in Armenia, in political processes, it
does not form the administration. Artsakh has its own parliament, its
own administration," Pashinyan said.

Every time Armenia says Karabakh should participate in the
negotiations Azerbaijan says that representatives of the Azerbaijani
community of Karabakh need to participate in the negotiations in that
case, he said.

"It's a false argument. The civil status of the Azerbaijanis who lived
in Karabakh did not change as a result of the conflict. Before and
after the conflict, they stay citizens of Azerbaijan, they continue
participating in elections in this country, including presidential
elections. That is, Ilham Aliyev participates in negotiations having a
mandate and these people," the Armenian prime minister said.

Armenia is not trying to disrupt the negotiations on Karabakh
settlement, he said.

"I am ready for negotiations with Aliyev in the OSCE Minsk Group. But
before that I have to do everything to increase the effectiveness of
negotiations. It is necessary to fulfil the earlier reached
agreements. It is very inconvenient to have negotiations on new
agreements if the old ones have not been fulfilled. The conflict has
no military solution. But any provocation by the enemy will be
followed by a crashing blow from Armenia," the Armenian prime minister
said.

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