Monday, May 14 2018 12:41

ArmInfo. The first president of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, made a statement on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on the Karabakh conflict and the response of ex-  defense minister Vigen Sargsyan on this matter.

In his article on the ilur.am portal, Ter Petrosyan, in particular,  accuses Vigen Sargsyan, who said Pashinyan is ignorant with the  intricacies of the Karabakh conflict, in ignorance of the details of  the negotiation process. According to him, Armenia, Azerbaijan and  Artsakh received the status of parties to the conflict on the final  document of the Budapest Summit of the OSCE on December 6, 1994, and  more specifically, in explanation of the Chairman of the OSCE Council  of 31 March 1995.

In his last interview Vigen Sargsyan criticized Pashinyan for the  statements on the Karabakh settlement made in Stepanakert, in  particular, for saying that Armenia is a party to the conflict.

According to Sargsyan, Armenia is not a party to the conflict, but a  guarantor of the security of Artsakh.  This position, the ex-minister  believes, is consonant with the position of Baku, which thus tries to  transfer the conflict of the format of the principle of the people's  right to self-determination into the format of the territorial  integrity of states. Ter-Petrosyan claims that Sargsyan's statement  that Baku constantly tries to present Armenia as a party to the  conflict is nonsense. "Baku is trying to present Armenia not as a  side of the conflict, but as a side of the war, that is, as an  aggressor," the first president explains, adding that these  aspirations of Baku were suppressed by the four resolutions of the UN  Security Council, thanks to the work of Armenian diplomacy.  Ter-Petrosyan reminds that these resolutions clearly state that the  Azerbaijani territories bordering with Artsakh are "captured" not by  the army of Armenia, but by local Armenian forces. 

"If the person who headed the defense department of Armenia did not  realize these banal truths, then the Armenian people should be glad  that they freed themselves from the person who considers himself the  godfather of the concept of the Army-Nation," the first president  said. "Beyond the topic, it can be stated that recognition by the  international community of Artsakh as an equal party to the conflict  was one of the most important achievements of Armenian diplomacy,  which was lost by the second president of Armenia Robert Kocharyan,  to put it mildly, due to criminal negligence, which became the basis  for all further complications that arose later in the negotiation  process," sums up the first president.

At his press conference in Artskh, Nikol Pashinyan stated that  Armenia is a party to the conflict, as ex- Minister of Defense Vigen  Sargsyan parried, saying that such statements create additional  difficulties in the negotiation process, change its logic and pour  water on the mill of Baku.