“The principles still exist. But our readiness to continue working on it does not mean a lot because in such situations all parties shall be ready to move forward. And apart from that, the events in April showed there is zero trust among the parties, no confidence at all”, – President Serzh Sargsyan said in an interview to RIA Novosti on November 17, responding to a question whether Armenia would be willing to continue working towards peace deal in Nagorno Karabakh.
“We are ready to pursue resolution of this issue on the basis of those three principles, and only on the basis of those three principles”, – President summarised.
In an interview to Russian RIA Novosti news agency on November 17, Sargsyan elaborated that the three principles — of non use of force or the threat of force, territorial integrity, equal rights and self-determination of peoples — that are the main pillars of proposals tabled by the co-chairmen of OSCE Minsk Group in 2007, shall not be seen in contradiction to each other.
Sargsyan said Armenia had no issue with the principle of territorial integrity of states, including in the case of Azerbaijan, and further endorsed the 2010 ICJ Advisory Opinion on Kosovo where the Court ruled that “the scope of the principle of territorial integrity is confined to the sphere of relations between States”.
According to Sargsyan, Armenia has never withdrawn from meetings on Nagorno Karabakh on any level, yet Yerevan considers meetings shall bring progress and it does not make sense to meet and commit on things which would not be implemented down the road.
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“After the events in April we met in Vienna at the presence of [OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair] Foreign Ministers. A statement was adopted there. Why only statement? Because Azerbaijani side was reluctant, and only at the end had to give up and agree. But then, upon return to Azerbaijan they said it was the statement of co-chairs and it meant no commitments for them. After that we met in Saint Petersburg and again committed to create incident investigation mechanisms and expand the office of OSCE CiO Permanent Representative. Unfortunately, up until today neither of these commitments had been implemented”, – President Sargsyan testified.
Answering to a follow-up question of why wouldn’t the sides meet again and prepare those mechanisms, Sargsyan reiterated:
“For five years now we have been talking about this. The Co-Chairs, as it seems, already have a final draft, but the Azerbaijani side rejects it… We are ready to sign this document on incident investigation mechanisms even tonight. We do want both the co-chairs and the international community as a whole to learn who has been violating the ceasefire regime”, – Sargsyan said.
Reacting to Kiselyov’s remark that he wished the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan “would desire to stay in history as two leaders who brought peace to the region”, President Sargsyan elaborated:
“It is very important to me. It is very important, because I have devoted all my life to this issue”, adding that using force and other means of coercion by Azerbaijan against the inalienable right of peoples to self-determination in the case of Nagorno Karabakh had been both illegal, from the perspective of Soviet legislation or international law, and was in controversion with any set of values.