“There was no politician of any country throughout all the phases of the conflict and the resolution process who doubted that the only way for the conflict to be resolved peacefully is through having the Republic of Artsakh remain Armenian. However, there is still a long way to go before this can be recorded internationally. War, regardless of its form, is not the answer. Therefore, efforts need to be made throughout the negotiations process to maintain and develop what we won. The right to self-determination has been recognized by the OSCE Minsk Group a long time ago by all the co-chairs, and we need to talk about this frequently,” former chair of the National Assembly Standing Committee on Foreign Affairs, Artak Zakaryan, said in response to a question about how he would comment on the Azeri president’s response to Nikol Pashinyan’s statement about Artsakh.
According to Zakaryan, Aliyev’s statement about how ‘Karabakh is Azerbaijan’ is just as symbolic as Pashinyan’s statement in Stepanakert. Pashinyan’s pacifist approach toward the conflict’s resolution- the fact that it needs to be acceptable for Azerbaijan as well- is not appreciated by Azerbaijan and Azerbaijan does not respond to this appropriately. In fact, Azerbaijan has started to speak about a military conflict even more.
“There are tense relations in our region once again and the international political interests of Russia, the US, France, and Iran will clash. Maintaining active, understandable, balanced, and constructive relations with these countries is the key to the Artsakh conflict resolution. It is important to uphold thought-out policies and not act spontaneously. Otherwise, any statement made by any side of the conflict will not remain without a response,” Artak Zakaryan said.
Nelly Grigoryan
