The Serzh Sargsyan-Aliyev-Putin meeting in St. Petersburg is over and the presidents issued a joint statement, “The Presidents stated the importance of their regular meetings for the conflict resolution and agreed to continue the meetings in the same format,” – these lines of the statement have caused NA Committee on Foreign Affairs, Tevan Poghosyan’s discontent with the meeting.
In an interview with Aravot.am, he said, “In fact, instead of trying to bring Artsakh to the negotiations table, we brought the Russian side. Russia one way or another was always involved in the talks by the co-chairing format. Hence, it would be good if Artsakh President was there rather than to continue under this format. For me, this is a kind of incomprehensible. No one says, “Do not go to negotiate with the President of RF on some issues, but not the Artsakh issue. Or, if you were going, you could discuss the issues of bringing to responsibility and military balance, there were a number of issues that could be discussed there. People say, you can’t enter into the same river twice, it is not clear why we enter into the same river again. It is very good, you can meet with the RF president as much as you want but if you’re talking about Artsakh, so where is Artsakh’s presence, we should be demanding to see Artsakh at the table. Otherwise, we are again entering a new phase of “mid-Kazan” situation. Now, we can negotiate in the same format and later Azerbaijani side will come and tell you, good-bye, the same Kazan story will happen.”
According to Tevan Poghosyan, Armenian side should have raised the issue of involving Artsakh in the negotiating table. They may organize meetings of different formats but they must realize unless Artsakh’s participation, they cannot deal with the problem, “We are dealing with an unpredictable enemy called Azerbaijan. The statement says about the consent to increase the number of observers. We need to understand, well, these mechanisms are introduced, so what comes next if there is a violation. This second part remains unclear. They can increase the number of observers, but later say, you know what, we could not identify who has violated more, and make statements with an equal sign. Or, let’s say that they would say, we have decided that the Azerbaijani side has violated, so what, what will be the responsibility. Or, if these mechanisms are introduced in the Nagorno-Karabakh-Azerbaijan contact line, and on Nakhijevan border from the Armenian side. What mechanisms will operate there? Azerbaijan has never been ashamed of violating on both sides.”
Tevan Poghosyan believes that we must use this moment of temporary cease-fire correctly, “We need to rapidly modernize our arsenal, deal with the fight against corruption and democratic institutions. The only guarantee that there will be a cease-fire on the border is the advantage of our army forces. We need to understand that our problems are in our home and we must do our homework. These types of meetings maybe are important to be present at the international platforms but calling them guaranteed transactions is impossible.” To our observation that, in other words, these are so-called “entertainment” meetings, Tevan Poghosyan replied, “Maybe there is a sense in them too, they are different processes to show your position. These are opportunities but we have to understand that the guaranteed process that ensures peace in our region is our strong army.”
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Hripsime JEBEJYAN
