Armenian President presents vision of NK conflict settlement

Armenpress News Agency , Armenia
 Thursday


Armenian President presents vision of NK conflict settlement



YEREVAN, DECEMBER 15, ARMENPRESS. President Serzh Sargsyan has
presented his vision regarding the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh
conflict.

In an interview with ARMENIA TV, the president stressed that there
must be calm in the line of contact. Causalities must be ruled out.

“This manhunt which exists today must be ruled out. It will create
certain atmosphere and mutual trust. Where does mutual trust come
from? Mutual trust comes when you begin implementing the agreements
which you achieved recently. If you fail to implement the agreements
once, the worm of distrust begins to gnaw. One after one and this is
how an atmosphere of distrust appears. This must be eliminated, so
that after this the negotiations continue in a calm atmosphere”, he
said.

The president mentioned that at this moment negotiations over specific
points of settlement are not proceeding, however he mentioned that
this is natural – taking into account the developments of the past two
years. “During the last two years we had meetings in Vienna, St.
Petersburg, we’ve had agreements, and now one can say the process is
proceeding in two directions. The first direction is that the tension
must be eased, investigative mechanisms must be created, which will
bring to a certain atmosphere of mutual trust, and after which it will
be possible to go deeper over the provisions of the document. I’ve
said this once, and I will repeat it again – it is impossible to
negotiate with one hand and shoot with the other. Negotiations don’t
like gunfire. And it is impossible to achieve agreement in this kind
of conditions. Gunfire always disturb, human losses are always painful
and bring a nervous atmosphere in the negotiations process. Each word,
each provision must be weighed in a calm atmosphere, in order to be
able to reach agreement”, the Armenian President said.

The president also mentioned that Russian foreign minister Sergey
Lavrov did not present any conceptual or new proposal regarding the NK
conflict settlement during his latest regional visit. According to the
president, the Armenian-Russian relations agenda is so rich that
solely the NK issue is not discussed during the visits of high level
officials.

“In terms of Karabakh, I say again, Lavrov said everything at the
press conference. The Russian FM is convinced that this conflict is
possible to be settled within the OSCE Minsk Group and the proposed
principles are the ones which enable to solve the conflict”, he said.