Stepanakert doesn’t oppose dialogue with Baku, but says negotiations must take place within int'lly recognized platform
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YEREVAN, OCTOBER 14, ARMENPRESS. Artsakh does not oppose a dialogue with Azerbaijan, but says that the negotiation must take place within the frames of an internationally recognized platform, and that platform is the OSCE Minsk Group.
“We have never opposed the Stepanakert-Baku dialogue”, Foreign Minister of Artsakh Davit Babayan told reporters in Yerevan. “Quite the contrary, when after 1996 Artsakh, in fact, was left out of a part of the negotiation process, we were always calling for resuming the full format. And now the restoration of this format has also remained on our agenda. But these negotiationsmust not take place out of internationally recognized platform. There is one internationally recognized platform – the OSCE Minsk Group”, he said, commenting on Yerevan’s statements that the discussions between Stepanakert and Baku are important.
Babayan added that it is mentioned in a number of documents that Artsakh is a party to both the negotiations and the conflict. He said that Azerbaijan, however, says that it doesn’t want and will not negotiate with Artsakh as a party.
“We say let the format be restored and let’s negotiate. But if anyone thinks that the negotiations could be in the tone of ‘some aboriginal tribe’ in person of Artsakh changing its mind and going to its ‘mother country’, Azerbaijan to ask forgiveness and ask to take it back to its composition, this is not going to happen”, the FM said.
Babayan said that they have told this also to the leadership of Armenia, who, of course, understands it.