We Can’t Speak of Concessions with Today’s Azerbaijan: NKR President

There can be no compromise in the negotiation process within the OSCE Minsk Group without Nagorno-Karabakh’s knowledge, said president of the de-facto republic Bako Sahakyan in an interview with Ekho Moskvy (“Echo of Moscow”) radio’s Sergei Buntman, who travelled to Stepanakert, the capital of NKR, for the purpose of speaking to Sahakyan.

“We have repeatedly stated and continue to assert that it’s necessary to restore the format of the negotiation process. You know that according to the outcome of the OSCE Budapest summit, Karabakh is considered a full member of the negotiating process. And today talks are held without Karabakh’s participation and they can not lead to serious results. And in this respect too, we are doing some work and we hope that the international community and international organizations that are endowed with certain powers [mandates] will understand the need for recovery in the negotiation process. As a result, we can already expect some results in the negotiation process,” said Sahakyan.

However, he stressed that there are differences in the understanding of trade-offs between Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh.”Azerbaijan’s political leadership occasionally or, you could say, nearly every day issues threats against Karabakh. And of course such behavior, such policies can foster neither any negotiation process nor the peaceful resolution of the conflict. Therefore, under such conditions, we can’t even talk about mutual concessions.”