The statement “Karabakh is Azerbaijan” that Aliyev made at Valdai Discussion Club is as symbolic as the statement that Pashinyan made in Stepanakert. This is what former Minister of Defense of Armenia Artak Zakaryan wrote on his Facebook page with the following caption: “Making a statement just for the sake of making a statement”.
He particularly wrote the following:
“It is a fact that Artsakh is Armenia, and the goal of all Armenians is to make sure Artsakh remains as Armenia. Everything has to be done to achieve this goal. What is also a fact is that there is only format of negotiations to achieve this goal, and the official political statements of all the parties need to be made within the logic of this format.
The principle of the right of self-determination was acknowledged in all the joint statements of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs a long time ago, and it is necessary to talk about this constantly.
Almost all the political figures aware of the conflict (the political figures abroad) didn’t even have a doubt that the option for a peaceful settlement of the conflict is the fact that the Republic of Artsakh is an Armenian republic. However, there is still a way to go to enshrine this at the international level. No matter how it will be, war is not the solution to the issue. Consequently, it is necessary to make efforts to maintain and make more achievements in the talks over the peaceful settlement.
The statement “Karabakh is Azerbaijan” that Aliyev made at Valdai Discussion Club is as symbolic as the statement that Pashinyan made in Stepanakert.
We see that Azerbaijan isn’t appreciating and adequately responding to even Pashinyan’s pacifist approaches (the solution to the issue must be acceptable for the Azerbaijanis as well). On the contrary, Azerbaijan has been recently considering the military solution to the issue more often.
The key to a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict lies in the active, comprehensible, balanced and constructive relations with the Russian Federation, the United States, France and Iran. Otherwise, any statement from the parties to the conflict will not go unanswered."
