ArmInfo.Constant threat of war resumption is the key reason of population outflow from Armenia, the first president of Armenia, Armenian National Congress (ANC) leader Levon Ter-Petrosyan said at the 2nd ANC congress in Yerevan on December 17.
He said that since 1998 the country's authorities have been guided by a destructive political philosophy based on maintenance of the status quo in Nagorno-Karabakh and retention of the Turkish blockade. He thinks it is the protracted conflict that is exhausting the country and making it weaker with every passing day. In this context, he expressed confidence that now the negotiations cover more unfavorable documents for the Armenian side than in 1998. "There is no solution to the conflict other than the phased one that was mentioned even in 1997. But I am convinced that at that time the matter concerned a higher status of Nagorno-Karabakh than now. So, we have missed the right moment and lost 18 years, during which we could have developed the country and strengthened it," the first president stressed.
The politician thinks that if no solution is found now, in the future the settlement options will be worse than now. "The contemporary world is not guided by medieval or jungle laws. So, there is no solution to the conflict other than mutual concessions. An alternative to these concessions is war that can have tragic consequences such as large-scale migration. The Armenian citizens are leaving the country not so much due to the hard socio-economic situation, poverty, lack of justice, corruption, but because of the threat of war resumption," he said.
Ter-Petrosyan is sure that the danger of missing the right moment to settle the Karabakh conflict is still there, and this is proved by the active efforts of Russia in the Karabakh settlement. He recalled his statement that the key to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict resolution is in the hands of Russia. "The West, which does not consider the Karabakh settlement among its priorities, not only realizes this, but also estimates the special role of Moscow in the process," he noted.
According to him, the April war must have demonstrated to Azerbaijan how rapidly the Armenian people respond to external threats and how fast they consolidate. "So, in the next war, mo matter when it is unleashed by Baku, Azerbaijan will be defeated and will lose some more districts, and only God knows what will happen after that," he said. The first president also stressed that despite the bellicose statements of Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev, he considers Aliyev to be a rational statesman who can make a symmetrical step towards peace. "We equally sympathize both Armenians and Azerbaijanis, who suffer from the unresolved conflict, and we believe in the possibility of peaceful coexistence of the two nations and in establishment of good neighborly relations," Ter-Petrosyan added.
He also noted that the establishment of good neighborly relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey depends only on the settlement of the Karabakh conflict. Moreover, he believes that Turkey has made no hostile actions against the Armenian side, except the blockade imposed on Armenia. "In case the Karabakh conflict is resolved, the Armenian-Turkish relations will normalize by themselves," he said.