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March 28
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YEREVAN. – There is no document on Nagorno-Karabakh that the sides would accept as a basis for negotiations, said the former foreign minister of Armenia Vardan Oskanian in the interview to the 168 Zham (168 Hours) newspaper.

Below is an excerpt from the interview.

Oskanian thinks it is difficult to say which of the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict benefits from the current balance in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.

“An unclear or surprising thing for me is that it is the documents themselves rather than the contents of a document that the debate is over. At present, there is no agreement on the document on the negotiating table. What kind of document is it? The revised one? The one proposed in Saint Petersburg? Or is it the Madrid original? This is what the debate is over,” added former FM. “There is no document the sides would accept as a basis for negotiations. In the past there was a document everyone qualified as an acceptable basis for negotiations. We debated the contents of the document.”

Regarding the fact that Nagorno-Karabakh was out of the negotiation process when Oskanian was Armenia’s foreign minister and the reason why Stepanakert cannot be re-involved in the process, Oskanian said that it was mainly Azerbaijan that opposed Nagorno-Karabakh’s participation in the negotiations.

“If it becomes an ultimatum, the result may be an end to negotiations, which is very bad. The threat of other ways of resolving the problem will increase. So negotiations are a necessity,” he added. “On the other hand, let us not convince ourselves that Nagorno-Karabakh is outside the negotiation process. The [Minsk Group] co-chairs hold regular meetings with the Nagorno-Karabakh authorities. The fact of the Armenian side stating that no document will be accepted without Nagorno-Karabakh’s signature is a guarantee of the Nagorno-Karabakh people’s expression of will.”

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This text available in   Հայերեն and Русский
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