“Negotiations can take place only in case of Artsakh’s participation” (video)
“There will be many this kind of meetings, which will likely last for a long time,” says lawmaker Tevan Poghosyan, touching upon the yesterday’s meeting between Serzh Sargsyan and Ilham Aliyev. He considers it positive that while covering the meeting the Azerbaijani media outlets cited the Armenian websites. But he doesn’t consider that meeting to be a big achievement, “I consider them to be meetings and not negotiations. The negotiation can only take place in case of Artsakh’s participation. As long as Azerbaijan doesn’t let Artsakh participate in the negotiations, we should understand that the Azerbaijan will seek a military solution. Larisa Alaverdyan, Chairman of “Against Legal Arbitrariness” NGO, urges not to forget the atmosphere in which the meeting took place. “On the previous day we had a casualty on the RA border, this night again a serviceman was killed. No one touched upon the settlement of the issue. In 1994 they said that a ceasefire agreement would be signed and that issue would be quickly resolved. During 22 years we cannot understand which that ‘quickly’ is,” she noted. She also thinks that our Ministry of Foreign Affairs should not pin its hopes on the army, “Our diplomacy should operate. Even the return of the bodies [of killed soldiers] took place through the Ministry of Defense.” Mrs Alaverdyan can also see a necessity that the Minsk Group Co-Chairs hold a monitoring of speeches of the Armenian and Azerbaijani officials. “In Azerbaijan a shot is first fired in the political arena, statements are made, and then they start it on the border. All this should be examined.”
