There will be no settlement to the Karabakh issue without the participation of the people of Artsakh, and this has been made clear in all statements of the leaders of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairing states and all working documents, Armenian Prime Minster Nikol Pashinyan told a press conference today.
All working documents stipulate that Artsakh should be involved at the final stage of the negotiation process. I say that if we speak about a final resolution of the issue, Artsakh must be involved. This does not mean we cannot talk at all. He reiterated that Armenia is ready to negotiate.
“I’m ready to negotiate with the President of Azerbaijan, because meetings and discussions are important, because we need to establish an atmosphere of trust without which the settlement is impossible,” the Prime Minister stated.
“We are ready to take steps towards creating an atmosphere conducive to settlement of the issue. On the other hand we say that Azerbaijan’s aggressive and bellicose rhetoric is unacceptable to us. We tell the international community, the Co-Chairs that we are ready to take efforts towards settlement of the Karabakh conflict, but we need a relevant atmosphere,” he added.
The Prime Minister said Azerbaijan’s more aggressive stance after the revolution is connected with the concerns of the Azerbaijani authorities that their people could get inspired by democratic changes in Armenia, the fight against corruption. “They fear that the processes could move to Azerbaijan and thus try to divert the attention of the society from corruption and state of democracy to the Karabakh issue,” Nikol Pashinyan said.
