It is impossible to hold peaceful negotiations in an atmosphere of hatred. This is what Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Zohrab Mnatsakanyan said in response to a question about the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in an interview with the French Le Figaro newspaper.

The minister informed about the meeting held with his Azerbaijani counterpart in Moscow on 15 April.

Among the attendees of the meeting were Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Russian Federation Sergey Lavrov and the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, and the meeting was a follow-up to the March 29 summit of the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“From Armenia’s perspective, the question at hand is the security of the 150,000 people living in Artsakh. Those people are always under a threat, taking into consideration the existence of an atmosphere of hatred instilled towards the Armenians. There can only be a political settlement, and the only format for achieving that political settlement is the co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group. However, at the same time, there also has to be an atmosphere contributing to peace and the interactions between people. We can’t hold negotiations on the one hand and see manifestations of hatred on the other hand. People’s security and the status of Artsakh are primary issues. The 150,000 people living in Artsakh must participate in this process. They are the guarantors of the Armenian identity, an identity that still faces the denial of the genocide,” the minister stated.