The Armenian authorities have not announced about refusing the agreements reached in Vienna, Saint Petersburg and Geneva. This is what Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Shavarsh Kocharyan told journalists after the March 7 government session.

According to the Deputy FM, the possible date of the meeting of Armenia’s Premier Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijan’s President Ilham Aliyev is still undecided and needs to be agreed upon.

As Kocharyan mentioned, the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs know very well that the issue of Karabakh’s involvement in the negotiations must be solved upon mutual consent of the parties. “Although Baku is doing everything it can to show resistance to that, Armenia needs to be consistent to impose that approach on Azerbaijan and through the efforts of the international community,” he stated.

The Deputy FM stated that it is illogical to talk about the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict when one of the two parties is not participating in the negotiations. “The parties to the conflict are Karabakh and Azerbaijan, and Armenia is a party that is engaged. Armenia is against any change of format of the negotiations,” the Deputy FM clarified.

Shavarsh Kocharyan emphasized that the only principle that two of the three parties have accepted is the Madrid Principles and that there are no other documents for the time being. “In this stage, the Madrid Principles are the only document that Armenia and Azerbaijan have accepted, but not Karabakh. Armenia has not approved those Principles. It has simply accepted them as a basis for negotiations. The Madrid Principles are only the Co-Chairs’ attempt to converge the parties’ opposing approaches,” Shavarsh Kocharyan noted.

The Deputy FM added that Azerbaijan has not taken any action to prepare its people for peace and to implement the Madrid Principles. “Armenia is interested in effective negotiations, not negotiations just for the sake of negotiations,” he added.