We neither expect nor demand a change of format of negotiations, and it doesn’t even comply with our desires and logic. This is what Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated as he responded to a question from a Turkish delegate to the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on 11 April.
According to him, the co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group is the format in which the discussions on a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict are taking place. “If we take a look at the history of the co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group and how it was established, we will see that it implied the participation of Karabakh’s representatives in the talks. This was not only implied, but also took place. I can’t remember the exact date right now, but I assume the meeting of President of Azerbaijan Heydar Aliyev and President of Nagorno-Karabakh Robert Kocharyan took place in 1994, 1995 or 1996. We have documents stating that this communication was in the trilateral format of the OSCE Minsk Group, meaning there were not only the three co-chairs, but also the representatives of Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
Armenia has set the objective to continue the negotiations in the same format. Some tried to view this as a destructive position, but it is exactly the opposite. We’re asking if there is a desire to settle the conflict or not, and if there is a desire, do we picture a settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict without the participation of Nagorno-Karabakh?” Pashinyan declared.
“The word “occupation” is used very often, but the people living in Karabakh were born there, live there, their ancestors and their forefathers lived there. How can a person occupy a territory in which he was born and in which his ancestors are buried?
Every conflict needs to be viewed in its essence. It’s clear that there are many subtleties. Our proposal is to sit around a table with all the parties to the conflict, discuss all the subtleties and agree that we are talking about the settlement of the conflict and that our agenda is to solve the issues, not destroy each other, as it is the right thing to do for people of the 21st century, the two member countries of the Council of Europe and peoples,” the Prime Minister of Armenia said.
He recalled that he had recently publicly asked if Azerbaijan’s leadership has anything to say to the peoples of Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia.
“I would like to have the opportunity to address the people of Azerbaijan and speak to them. I can do it now, but I don’t want it to be unilateral and viewed as a provocative action. I want the governments, societies and youth to start and hold the conversation because our agenda is a peace agenda,” Pashinyan emphasized.
