Monday, September 22 2014

Armenia expects statements regarding the Genocide of Armenians from Turkey, President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan told Corriere della Sera, an Italian daily, while on a visit to Vatican, according to Inopressa.ru. 

"Armenia seeks to maintain the cooperation of the East and West. Small countries overdare trying to play on the contradictions of big global centers in decision-making. We have strategic and economic relations with the Russian Federation, together with Moscow we are members of the CSTO, but we have brilliant relations also with the United States, the European Union and NATO.  Therefore, amid their tense relations, we choose non-interference. We are building our foreign policy around specific issues," the president said.
For comparison, Serzh Sargsyan said, look at the voting on Crimea at the UN GA. "Armenia voted against the resolution and not only because Russia did so. As you know, there is still unresolved conflict over Nagorno Karabakh, a region where most of the population is Armenians. Artsakh declared independence from Azerbaijan. The peoples' right to self-determination is a root principle. We deny the approach suggesting to ask a permission before exercising this acknowledged principle," the president said. 

"I remember the time after the collapse of the Soviet Union, when Europe fully supported the right to self- determination. Armenia, Azerbaijan and Ukraine became independent through exercise of this right. Should we support the exercise of this right with regards to big territorial formations like the USSR, but not to smaller formations? Look at the independence of Kosovo: there is no difference between it and Nagorno Karabakh," Serzh Sargsyan said.

Asked where he sees any difference between Kosovo and Crimea, the Armenian president said he has no right to make any judgments regarding Crimea. "However, it is obvious that there right to self- determination is in question here. Anyway, we see no contradictions between the right to self-determination and the principle of territorial integrity.

These are two fundamental principles of the UN Statute," Sargsyan said. He supposes that in the current situation, the Karabakh conflict will not be resolved shortly. "I think so not only because of Azerbaijan's trigger-happy policy that is supported by Turkey. That country still denies the fact of the Genocide of the Armenian people. In 2015 we will be marking the centennial of those dramatic events. I have invited also President of Turkey Erdogan to the upcoming events, but I am not sure he will arrive," Sargsyan said.
The Armenian president said that latest developments in the Middle East have aroused concern of the world community and Armenia. "In Iraq and Syria big Armenian communities peacefully co-existed with Muslims. Now we are witnessing gradual destruction of the cultural heritage of the Christians in that region. We are a small country, but the Armenian government has always supported the efforts of the big coalitions seeking to stabilize the situation in the region. We are planning to deploy an Armenian contingent under Italian command as part of the UN peacekeeping mission in Lebanon in late October," Sargsyan said for conclusion.