“Impossible to pull trigger with one hand, negotiate with the other”, President Sargsyan on NK conflict

Armenia is following the serious military-political processes which are happening not far from its borders, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said in his speech at the National Defense Research University’s session on October 24.

“I presented my principle approaches over the Nagorno Karabakh conflict recently at the UN General Assembly. I don’t see the need to repeat what I’ve said there. Nevertheless, I’d like to emphasize several circumstances.

First, at this phase we do not have a goal to solve or put forward a military task in Artsakh. We have solved the task of protecting the civilian population of Artsakh from the adversary’s indiscriminate gunfire, and we have solved it long ago. The peaceful settlement of the conflict, among other conditions, must completely exclude any military threat towards the peaceful population of Artsakh.

Second, the Nagorno Karabakh conflict indeed has no military solution. Therefore it is impossible to pull the trigger with one hand, and to negotiation with the other hand for finding this solution. We either negotiation or we shoot. We are ready for both”, the President said.

The President emphasized that the negotiations should take place in conditions of mutual trust via gun silence. Serzh Sargsyan mentioned that by achieving short-term tactical or propaganda advantage, neither of the sides solves any significant issue for itself. On the contrary, the provocations make the serious negotiations simply impossible.

“Here I’d like to make a small deviation from the topic and say that honestly a very strange situation has been created for me, when after the Geneva talks the Azerbaijani side is attempting to emphasize with a special cruelty that I have violated some kind of agreements. It is honestly strange, and I am waiting for our next meeting very impatiently in order to ask my colleague what had angered him. Moreover, those who talk are people who shouldn’t have absolutely any information about our conversation, because it was the two of us talking, and If we had an agreement on non-disclosure, then how did his assistants, or, I don’t know, deputies and others get acquainted with the topic? I reassure you I haven’t said a single word from our conversation anywhere. And what did I say at the meeting with the Armenian community of Switzerland?

I said that no Armenian leader can sign a document which can put at risk the security of Nagorno Karabakh. Secondly, I said that Karabakh must not be part of Azerbaijan. And third, I said that the Azerbaijani President is also concerned over the safety and fatalities of his soldiers. Is there anything new here? I repeated what I’ve been saying for 20 years, what we are talking about for 25 years. Meaning, if it seemed to anyone that if we negotiate in Geneva, adopted a statement that the tension must be reduced, it doesn’t mean that striving for Karabakh’s independence should also reduce. Honestly, it is very strange for me”, the President said.

The President said that Armenia does not carry out, and won’t carry out revenge and collective punishment actions. Nevertheless, the President warned that for every military loss, a compensation action against the soldiers of the other side will take place.

“The third group of my points is about our ideology. The Nagorno Karabakh conflict doesn’t have an ethnic or religious nature. We don’t have any problems neither with the Azerbaijani people, nor moreover with Islam. We are convinced that the Azerbaijani people want peace, it is simply necessary to put this desire onto the right track”, the President said.

He reminded that since the very first day of the Artsakh Liberation Movements, the Armenian side did everything within the then-active laws and international rights. “We really proceeded by carrying out all actions in compliance with the then-active USSR law and international rights. I don’t how to what extent we must be grateful to our senior friends who were able to instill this right idea in us. And it is because of this that we clearly say that the Nagorno Karabakh conflict differs from all conflicts in the post-Soviet territory, not only because the origins of the conflicts are different, but first of all because everything was done within the laws and rights”, he said.