YEREVAN. March 12 (Interfax) - The peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict and effective negotiations are priorities for Armenia, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on Tuesday.
"The Armenian government will take consistent steps toward getting Karabakh involved in the negotiations, and this issue has been and will continue to be a crucial point of our discussions with the president of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, and the co-chairs of the OSCE [Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe] Minsk Group," Pashinyan said during a joint meeting of the Armenian and the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh Republic's security councils in Stepanakert.
"I want to stress that for us, getting Artsakh [the Armenian name for Karabakh] involved in the negotiations is not a whim, let alone a precondition. We are keen on reaching an entirely peaceful settlement and have faith in the process of negotiations, for whose effectiveness this issue is key," Pashinyan said.
According to his government's press service, Pashinyan said that until now the negotiating framework has involved all interested parties but one.
"At these talks Azerbaijan is represented in the person of President Aliyev. As a matter of fact, he is representing, as he likes to say, the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh because its representatives, being citizens of Azerbaijan, voted in the presidential election and gave the president of Azerbaijan the powers to represent them. Therefore, the presence of the president of Azerbaijan also provides for the presence of the Azerbaijanis who were living in Karabakh at the time," Pashinyan said.
The other two negotiators, Armenia and the international community, are represented by the prime minister and the Minsk Group co-chairs, respectively, he said.
"And who is representing the people of Artsakh in these negotiations? The heart of the matter is, that today there is no representative who would have the powers or the legitimacy to represent the people of Artsakh. The Armenian prime minister cannot fulfill such powers because the people of Artsakh did not elect him. The Armenian prime minister is not part of the circle of people with the powers to represent Artsakh. This is neither a whim nor precondition, but a question of legitimacy. Nevertheless, I want to stress that the Republic of Armenia was and is a guarantor of the security of Artsakh and will continue to be involved in negotiations."
It is also necessary to discuss and answer the question of whether the Armenian government accepts the three principles and six elements of international law put forward by the OSCE MG as a basis for negotiations, the prime minister said.
"What can these principles mean in reality and who has the right to comment on them? This is important, because the way Azerbaijan has commented on these principles is unacceptable for us.
"Of course, we can make our own comments but this is pointless since our aim is in effective negotiations, which should proceed based on statements of fact, ruling out any other interpretations. But the principles and elements which the co-chairs have offered over the past ten years have been commented on diversely. Therefore, a crucial aim of forthcoming negotiations should be to clarify these three principles and six elements, and we are ready for such talks."
Pashinyan also stressed the importance of preparing people for peace.
"This is our joint work. For example, readying the Azerbaijani people for peace should involve the government of Armenia as well as the Azeri one. It is this realization that led me, in the fall of 2018, to declare that any resolution of the conflict should be acceptable for the people of Armenia, Artsakh and Azerbaijan. This is my contribution in preparing the people of Armenia, Artsakh and Azerbaijan for peace. Unfortunately, we have not seen commensurate statements from the president of Azerbaijan.
"Nevertheless, I am ready to continue dialogue with the president and the people of Azerbaijan because I am certain that its people are as peace-loving as the people of Armenia and Artsakh."
The councils also evaluated Karabakh's security system during the meeting, the Armenian government's press service said.
"It was noted that the security resources were guaranteed and of a high-level, and it was stressed that Artsakh's security and status have been and continue to be Armenia's priorities. [The councils] note the importance of forming an atmosphere of peace and border-incident reduction mechanisms, as was declared at summits in Dushanbe, Vienna and St. Petersburg," it said.