YEREVAN. – Incumbent Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan’s view on Nagorno-Karabakh is more convincing than the statements that it is indispensable to immediately recognize the independence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR). Armenia’s ex-presidential candidate, NKR former FM Arman Melikyan said this during a press conference on Wednesday. 

In Melikyan’s words, however, Sargsyan’s view is not so clear.  

“He says we [that is, Armenia] will recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic if war breaks out and Azerbaijan launches military operations. That is, Karabakh’s independence turns into something that depends on war; this is a wrong approach,” Melikyan noted. 

In his view, a parallel process needs to be started toward the recognition of NKR.   

“And this process will convert NKR’s recognition into a political agenda matter, not into an issue of war,” Melikyan stressed, and added that there exist diplomatic and political methods, by whose assistance a de facto independence can be turned into a de jure independence.        

Photo by Arsen Sargsyan/NEWS.am