YEREVAN. – The handing over of the territories contiguous to Nagorno-Karabakh can only bring the Azerbaijani threat geographically closer.

Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Dashnaktsutyun Party MP Aghvan Vardanyan stated the abovementioned at Friday’s 15th Meeting of the EU-Armenia Parliamentary Cooperation Committee, which is held in Armenia’s capital city of Yerevan.

Responding to British Conservative Party MP and Member of the European Parliament Sajjad Karim who suggested considering handing over several areas adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian MP objected saying that the surrendering of territories will only mean bringing the adversary’s aggression—which has intensified lately—closer.

“We rule out any concession in this regard, and we will not make mutual concessions with preconditions,” Vardanyan added.

And to Karim’s remarks that such a move will have a meaning in terms of normalizing Armenia’s relations with Turkey, the ARF MP noted that the two parties should not be dependent on the wishes of a third country—that is, Azerbaijan—in the talks between them.

“This requirement runs contrary to all the rules of international diplomacy,” Aghvan Vardanyan concluded.