The second President of Armenia, , on Nikol Pashinyan’s statement about leaving Artsakh out of the negotiations process
“I became the President of Armenia in 1998. There were no negotiations processes after the Lisbon summit in December of 1996. Essentially, all throughout 1997 until April of 1998 (I was elected in February of 1998, but I was inaugurated in April). Until then, intense negotiations took place between the advisor to the first president, Jirayr Liparityan, and President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev’s advisor, Vafa Guluzade. Intense negotiations without Artsakh. I was the President of Artsakh, and when Jirayr Liparityan would visit, he wouldn’t tell me what happened in its entirety.
Or, he would speak to the Minister of Foreign Affairs of Artsakh at the time, Arkady Ghukasyan. But Artsakh did not participate in those negotiations whatsoever. In January of 1997, when Jirayr Liparityan was removed from that position, he gave a press conference and announced, ‘We began this process with Vafa Guluzade thinking that we will help quicken the process, but the opposite happened.’ This is a fact. The person who began and continued the process without Artsakh accepted his mistake. After all of this, how can people say that I am the one who left Artsakh out of negotiations? If it is necessary, we can publish those facts one more time.”
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