All six Madrid Principles are unacceptable to either Armenia or Nagorno-Karabakh nor do they meet Armenia’s national interests, the former Armenian Foreign Minister Alexander Arzumanyan told reporters on July 24.

This is first of all the principle stipulating the withdrawal of Armenian troops from the conflict zone, which gives rise to a number of questions: what forces are going to replace the Armenian troops? Will Azerbaijani troops be able to return to the territories?

At present it is not the withdrawal of Armenian troops, but the return of the disputed territories to Azerbaijan, that is in question. Of course, this is unacceptable to either Armenia or Nagorno-Karabakh, Arzumanyan said.

He also doubts that an agreement — if signed — will grant an interim status to Nagorno-Karabakh, which is supposed to ensure Nagorno-Karabakh’s security and local government. “Over ten years the Armenian authorities have welcomed the fact that the nations’ right to self-determination became the basis for negotiations. At present, however, the ‘lowest degree’ of the self-determination concept, namely, self-government has been singled out,” Arzumanyan said with regret. Since 1995 Nagorno-Karabakh has actually had self-government, it may be its self-government status as part of the unitary state of Azerbaijan that is in question. “It is absolutely unacceptable, and it does not even contain a hint at the principle of nations’ right to self-determination,” Arzumanyan said.

Nor do the principles stipulate any referendum, Arzumanyan said with confidence. There is only a principle on free expression of popular will. Arzumanyan believes such an approach is extremely dubious and can be interpreted in different ways. “If a legally unclear term substitutes for the term ‘referendum’, it means no agreement on referendum has yet been reached. And the term can acquire one meaning or another, which depends on the further development of the talks,” Arzumanyan said.