“WE MUST RESPECT THE SOVEREIGNTY OF KARABAKH, AS WELL AS THE RIGHT OF THE REFUGEES TO RETURN”
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| 20:01:08 | 30-05-2005 | Politics |
RA first Foreign Minister Raffi Hovhannisyan was elected today
President of the party Heritage. But before the election he made a
one-hour speech in which he represented concisely our history of the
first, second and third Republics.
He called everyone not to criticize the founders of either the first
or the second republics as if it weren’t for them, perhaps the third
republic would not exist. He recalled Karen Demirchyan and Vazgen
Sargsyan. Then he spoke about the challenges of the time.
Raffi Hovhannisyan also referred to his version of the settlement
of the Karabakh conflict. According to him, Karabakh’s right of
sovereignty must be respected, as NKR is a sovereign republic. Karabakh
must be included in the negotiation process as a third party. “And we
must remember: there are no recognized or non-recognized republics;
there are existing and non-existing republics”.
Raffi Hovhannisyan also announced that the Azeris must return to their
houses in Artsakh and Armenians must return to theirs in Getashen
and Shahoumyan, and, on the whole, “We must respect the right of the
refugees to return to their houses”.
As for the new format, Raffi Hovhannisyan said he respects Hovhannes
Hovhannisyan and Aram Sargsyan, as well as other representatives of
the political field, but today it is still to early to speak about
it. And Hovhannes Hovhannisyan informed the journalists once more
that the creation of a new format is inevitable.
By the way, the RA first and second Presidents, the NKR President
and the leaders of all the parties were invited to the conference of
the Heritage party. Naturally, the Presidents had not accepted the
invitation. Representatives of the Pan Armenian Movement and “New
Times” were not present either. Nevertheless, there has never been
such a wide range of representatives in the session of another party.