People of Nagorno Karabakh should have their representative in negotiation process-PM Pashinyan

The foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are working to arrange the possible meeting of the heads of the states, ARMENPRESS reports Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with Deutsche Welle Russian service.

To the question of the journalist what were the results of the meetings with Aliyev, Pashinyan answered, “This is only a preliminary process, just talks. Our official negotiations on Nagono Karabakh issue have not started yet, we just meet, talk, exchange views on the processes and the history of the negotiations process. We did not expect that there would be some moves based on those meetings”.

Informing that at the moment the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan are working to arrange the possible meeting of the heads of the states, the PM underlined, “They are working for making that possible meeting more comprehensible for the sides – what and in what way we will discuss. It’s impossible to settle the conflict without solving some special issues. For example, I have announced several times that I can negotiate on behalf of the Republic of Armenia, but the conflict is about Nagorno Karabakh. So who will represent Nagorno Karabakh? It’s one of the main parties of the conflict”.

He reminded that Nagorno Karabakh has authorities, and elections are held there, and people of Nagorno Karabakh do not participate in the elections of Armenia. “They have not given me any mandate to represent them anywhere. The people of Nagorno Karabakh have their representatives, who should represent them during the negotiation process”, the PM said.

Pashinyan assessed it unacceptable to draw parallels between the NK conflict and for example Donbas or Abkhazia. “It’s totally unacceptable for us that parallels can be drawn between such cases, since they have totally different origins and are different situations”, the Armenian PM said.