Monday, May 14 2018 15:46

ArmInfo.Spokesman for the head of Artsakh, David Babayan, at the request of ArmInfo correspondent, touched upon the statements of the new Prime Minister of Armenia  Nikol Pashinyan on the Artsakh settlement, and the reaction of former  Defense Minister Vigen Sargsyan following this.

Concerning Pashinyan's statement that Armenia is a party to the  Karabakh conflict and accusations of the former defense minister that  this statement contradicts Yerevan's position and pours water to the  mill of Baku, Babayan stated that, naturally, when the conflict was  only emerging, Armenia was not a party to the conflict, but  subsequent processes made Armenia a direct participant. "Initially,  the conflict arose between Artsakh and Azerbaijan, but then, Armenia  voluntarily and unwillingly became its party, which was also caused  by the aggression of Baku directly against the territories of  Armenia. All the above circumstances forced Armenia to become a party  to the conflict," the spokesman said. And in this context he added  that the essence of the issue is not whether Armenia is a party to  the conflict or not. In his opinion, today it is important to restore  the full format of the negotiations with the participation of  Artsakh.

At the same time, Babayan believes that it will not be easy to  restore the format of negotiations with the participation of Artsakh,  it will require serious efforts, as this will be painful for Baku,  and he will resist it in every possible way. "Moreover, taking into  account the above, it is necessary to exert maximum efforts and make  sure that all this does not lead to a deadlock in the negotiation  process," said the Spokesman.

Babayan also considers it extremely important to use the correct  appropriate terminology in the conflict.  According to him, the term  "Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict" is used in Baku,  thus trying to demonstrate Armenia's territorial claims to  Azerbaijan, as well as betraying the ethnic color of this conflict.  "We use the terminology of the Karabakh-Azerbaijan conflict, thus  transferring its essence. The names of this formulation reflect the  whole essence of the conflict, and I think it would be more correct  to use this term henceforth," Babayan said.

Artsakh president's press secretary, is convinced that Baku is trying  to speculate with Pashinyan's statements. Hysterics of Baku is caused  by a number of factors: internal political problems in Azerbaijan,  25th anniversary of losses for the AR (beginning of the Karabakh  conflict), very low level of legitimacy of the authorities of this  country, continuation of the wave of corruption exposures involving  Baku in Europe", he said.

To clarify whether it follows from the aforesaid that it will be  difficult to restore full-format negotiations in the foreseeable  future, Babayan said that yes. "Azerbaijan will prevent this in every  possible way, a harsh reaction to Baku in response to Pashinyan's  statement about the need for Stepanakert to return to the negotiating  table as soon as possible." It will take a lot of time and effort to  achieve positive progress in this issue," he said.

Asked whether the inclusion of the issue of international recognition  of Artsakh in the foreign policy agenda of Yerevan will hurt the  negotiation process, Babayan said that these are two parallel  processes that need to be continued. According to him, it is no  coincidence that Artsakh developed a multi-stage development program,  according to which work in this direction is conducted at different  levels, starting with interuniversity interaction, continuing  interaction at interurban and municipal level and only then, the  culminations are interaction at the interstate level.

At the same time Babayan is convinced that Armenia and Artsakh should  go to this together. "Artsakh alone can not achieve the effect that  it can achieve in tandem with Armenia," he concluded.