The meeting in Sochi was a step forward towards the implementation of the peace agenda, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the budget discussions at the National Assembly.
He called a meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin and Azerbaijani president llham Aliyev “very useful.”
“Before the Sochi meeting there were a lot of discussions among the public on whether Armenia was moving along the most optimal path of normalization of relations with Azerbaijan and the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh issue. There was much talk about to what extent the policy pursued by the government meet the interests of the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh. I think one of the most important nuances of the Sochi meeting was the answer to this question,” the Prime Minister said.
He added that the answer existed even before the Sochi meeting, but the discussions have now become maximally public.
“You know that there are Russian and non-Russian proposals, and attempts are being made to create an impression as if the steps of the Armenian government contradict the so called Russian concept. This is not the case,” he said.
“Our Russian colleagues have announced that they think the right approach will be to postpone the issue of the status of Artsakh indefinitely. They support the proposal by the fact that at the moment there is practically no chance to find a status that would be mutually acceptable,” PM Pashinyan said.
He said it fully complies with the policy of the Republic of Armenia.
“We have agreed with our Russian partners that we should not try to solve the issue now, because it will inevitably lead to a crisis,” the Prime Minister said.
During the meeting in Sochi the Armenian side also proposed to extend the mandate of the Russian peacekeepers in Artsakh, but the proposal was rejected, he said.
