Expert: NATO is not a platform for resolving Karabakh conflict

Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan's statement during the NATO summit that the status quo of Nagorno Karabakh can be changed only after the Artsakh people exercise their right for self-determination was an adequate response to Azerbaijani-Turkish attempts to make this organization a platform for the settlement of this conflict, Director of the Analytical Centre on Globalization and Regional Cooperation Stepan Grigoryan stated on July 12 at a press conference in Yerevan.

He considers positive the Armenian side's representation on the summit on the level of the president as due to it Ankara and Baku's attempts to interpret Karabakh issue for their benefit were prevented. "The Armenian side made it clear that it does not accept any other involvement outside the Minsk Group format", the expert noted. At the same time Grigoryan stated that all the international organizations state about the inadmissibility of status quo however, for the first time the Armenian side stated how it may be changed. 
Director of Caucasus Institute Aleksandr Iskandaryan has also positively assessed the statement made by Sargsyan however, according to him it was a trite statement and cannot have serious impact on the process of settlement. "The status quo exists for already more than twenty years and it can be maintained for another twenty years, consequently such statements do not change anything", he noted. The expert also thinks that NATO is not very interested in Karabakh settlement, and it is not the platform, which can settle the issue, "Sargsyan just used a good occasion to voice the problem and his stand on it", Iskandaryan stated.

During his speech on NATO summit President Serzh Sargsyan stated that Armenia stands exclusively for peaceful settlement of the conflict. He also touched upon April aggression initiated by Azerbaijan and the recent meetings with his Azerbaijani counterpart in Vienna and Saint Petersburg and also stressed that status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh may be changed only after the exercise of Artsakh people's right for self- determination.