Today, President Armen Sarkissian received a group of Hadrut residents who were deprived of their homes due to the Azerbaijani-Turkish military aggression against Artsakh and are currently seeking refuge in Armenia.
“We all feel pain, but it is incomparable with what you, your families, relatives are living,” said the President.
“Every Armenian in the world has a great burden, but that burden, of course, is not comparable to yours. We must do everything so that all of us, from Armenia to Artsakh, can get up, stand, cross a difficult path not to become a defeated people, state, nation. These are my words of consolation because I have no others right now. That is why it is essential for us to be united as a nation and a state. We must try to do our best,” he said.
According to the President, blaming each other and arguing will take us nowhere but to great misfortune. “Let’s try to stand up and help each other.”
The people of Hadrut, who were hosted at the Presidential Palace, said that they had recently turned to international organizations and embassies with their concerns and disagreements over what had happened. They informed that they summarized their demands in main points: consider the issue of de-occupation of Hadrut, make every effort to put the issue of Hadrut and all other related issues in the negotiating agenda within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group, take the issue of IDPs from Hadrut to the legal level, raise the issue of preservation of historical and cultural monuments of Hadrut.
Noting that he had nothing to do with the ceasefire document, President Sargsyan said: “It hurts me because my diplomatic and negotiating experience of so many years has not been used.”
The President of the Republic noted that one of the first steps today should be to “take the Karabakh issue back to the negotiation stage – the OSCE Minsk Group.”
“Ultimately, the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh will be determined by the OSCE Minsk Group. We must invest all our potential, both political and diplomatic, to take the issue back to the Minsk Group. This may be the mechanism that should work for the preservation of historical and cultural heritage. The platforms can be the OSCE Minsk Group, UNESCO or other international bodies,” President Sarkissian said.
The President said: “You must make your voice heard. You will not be able to negotiate, but your voice must be heard. You have to be organized and your problems, the demand must be factual. I stand with you.”
Noting that there are huge humanitarian problems today, the President was able to solve them through various programs.
