A Difficult Document Awaits Armenia, Azerbaijan Presidents: Shahnazaryan

The statement issued by Dmitry Medvedev, Barack Obama and Nicolas Sarkozy in Deauville is the consequence of the unprecedented global cooperation recently underway between Russia and the West, said Armenian National Congress (HAK) representative David Shahnazaryan at a press conference in Yerevan today.

“I don’t remember such close, expansive cooperation. This is aimed at smoothing out the wrinkles in the Arab world and overcoming Israeli conflict. Never in the entire history of settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have the positions of the [Minsk Group] co-chair countries been so close and their activities so agreed upon,” he said.

Weighing in on the essence of the Deauville statement, Shahnazaryan stressed that this particular statement essentially and qualitatively differentiates from past statements made by leaders of the co-chair countries in the same format.

“This, essentially, presents a demand to [Armenian President] Serzh Sargsyan and [Azerbaijani President] Ilham Aliyev. It says that the time has come, agreements have to be reached and the document on which the processes have to be agreed upon is specifically noted. It stems from the statement that the parties have no room to maneuver and I think that the three co-chairs are sure they won’t have a problem with Sargsyan, but they’re not yet sure they won’t have a problem with Aliyev. If not in Kazan [the place of their next meeting], then at the next meeting, a serious document will be put forward,” he said.

According to Shahnazaryan, the document to be signed in the future will be neither pro-Azerbaijan nor pro-Armenia; it’ll be a difficult document for both parties.

The HAK representative didn’t rule out the possibility that under these conditions, in the near future, the co-chair countries will be able to reach an agreement also on the deployment, mandates, and composition of peacekeeping forces.

“In the current situation, the Armenian authorities have appeared in a difficult situation; they are forced to take serious, responsible steps, while in Armenia there is a deep crisis, and taking such steps in these conditions, I believe, will be an adventure at the very least. The only way out is presidential and parliamentary elections, to which there is no alternative — I think, the authorities understand this. I am confident that pre-term elections will take place in the very near future,” he said.