YEREVAN. Aug 11 (Interfax) - The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict does not have a military solution, Armenian President Serzh Sargsian said.
"The problem needs to be resolved at negotiations; the Karabakh problem does not have a military solution," he told the ArmNews channel upon a Sochi meeting with Azeri President Ilham Aliyev last weekend.
The Armenian president said the meeting did not yield any new agreements.
"I do not think it will make sense to speak about a new agreement because it makes no difference whether the agreements are concluded now or in the past. The sides simply must abide by the agreements concluded in 1994-1995. It is a different matter if new provisions are suggested and an agreement based on these new provisions is signed to declare the absolute non-use of military force. This is a higher level compared to the previous armistice accord. Such questions are asked by us and the intermediaries from time to time but we have not seen a positive reaction from Azerbaijan as of yet," Sargsian said.
The Karabakh settlement negotiations are currently centered on the Kazan document dated 2011, he said.
"The Kazan document is based on the Madrid principles and requires the resolution of this conflict on the basis of three fundamental tenets - the self-determination of nations, the territorial integrity and the non-use of force. The Azeri president refused to sign that document at the very last moment," Sargsian said.
"The Madrid principles stipulate the deployment of peacekeepers along the entire line of contact between the sides. But this is not the subject or the theme of the present-day negotiations," Sargsian pointed out.
"At the current stage we should only discuss the principles, i.e. whether the peacekeepers should be there or not. The composition and powers of the peacekeepers will be determined by a broader accord, which will follow the signing of the Kazan document," the Armenian president explained.
He disagreed with the opinion that only Russian peacekeepers could be deployed in the Karabakh conflict zone. "I have never heard until now that the deployment of only Russian peacekeepers has been proposed," he said.
The Armenian president thinks there is a slim chance that border incidents will continue in the Karabakh conflict zone with the intensity of the recent days.
"The events demonstrated that the Armenian armed forces were fully in control and every attempt undertaken by the Azeris had failed. But the most efficient way to avert border incidents will be the formation of international mechanisms for their investigation. If we manage to build this mechanism, it will be a serious incentive to prevent them. So, we should take relevant efforts," the Armenian president noted.