RA President Serzh Sargsyan hopes that a fair solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh problem will finally be found.

“Better a lean peace that war. If negotiations are held, there is an opportunity to achieve final results. The Armenian sides’ position – I mean Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh – is very simple. It is based on rule of law, international law. Karabakh was made part of Azerbaijan under a decision by the Communist Party in 1921. The Nagorno-Karabakh people never agreed to that decision. In 1988, a movement was launched and later, by means of referendum, Nagorno-Karabakh made a unilateral decision on self-determination,” President Serzh Sargsyan stated in an interview with the Ukraine-based “Profil” magazine.

“Even if anyone has recently stated that the peoples’ right to self-determination ran counter to the other fundamental principle, territorial integrity, after the World Court returned its well-known verdict that the unilateral declaration of independence by Kosovo did not run counter to international legal norms, everything fell into place. That is why at the OSCE ministerial summit in Almaty this year a clear statement was made that the three principles we the negotiations are based on – nonuse of force or threat of force, territorial integrity and peoples’ right to self-determination – are equal,” the Armenian leader said.

“We hope to find a final fair solution. If we acted on the premise that there is no solution, life would be very hard for us – first of all for the Nagorno-Karabakh people,” President Sargsyan said.