NK Deserves To Be Independent – Armenian President

NAGORNO-KARABAKH DESERVES TO BE INDEPENDENT – ARMENIAN PRESIDENT

Interfax News Agency
June 24 2008
Russia

The self-proclaimed republic of Nagorno-Karabakh should retain its
status as an independent enclave, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan
said.

"The people of Nagorno-Karabakh deserved the right to statehood first
legally and then because of the war imposed on them, and the issue
cannot have a solution that somehow infringes upon this status,"
Sargsyan said at a meeting with members of the Armenian diaspora in
Russia in Moscow on Tuesday.

"Nagorno-Karabakh has never been part of Azerbaijan, because it was
included in Soviet Azerbaijan through an illegal decision by a Party
body," Sargsyan said. "The motive for this decision was that it was
supposed to help spread the [1917] October revolution idea throughout
the Muslim East," he said.

Yerevan and Baku have agreed to continue negotiations on a settlement
of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Sargsyan said. "I met recently with
the president of Azerbaijan, and we agreed to continue the negotiating
process within the framework of a draft document on basic principles,"
he said.
From: Baghdasarian