Epress.am News from Armenia
It’s enough, for 19 years we, each putting himself in the position of a high-ranking political and experienced diplomat, have been serving the public that outdated justification that Nagorno-Karabakh’s recognition should be our last bullet against the threat of war and that recognition should interfere with the negotiating process, said Heritage Party Chair Raffi Hovannisian, speaking on the resolution submitted by the Heritage Party to the National Assembly.
According to Hovannisian, at the last moment, the National Assembly Chair requested that discussion on this issue be delayed by a few days, and Heritage postponed it until the next session, “so that we can continue discussions with both the public and civil society groups, and Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] representatives and coalition partners.”
The MP said that it’s necessary that the world view Nagorno-Karabakh as a sovereign state:
“That is, [a state that] deals with Armenia, friendly countries; [so that] mediators and even opponents know that the Armenian state recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as a state.”
By that, in Hovannisian’s opinion, the negotiating process won’t be thwarted because nothing like it has happened when Azerbaijan, in Strasbourg and in New York, presented its viewpoint on Nagorno-Karabakh’s ultimate status.
“Armenia itself doesn’t have any legal basis for negotiating on behalf of the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh regarding Nagorno-Karabakh’s status,” he said.
In turn, fellow Heritage Party MP Stepan Safaryan said that the majority of parliamentarians, during discussion of the bill, said that “there’s no Armenian who doesn’t recognize [the independence of] Nagorno-Karabakh.”
“But yesterday, the [Armenian] foreign minister used the expression ‘adjacent territories’ for those territories,” he said.