Yerevan. (Interfax) – Armenia is willing to be flexible on when Nagorno-Karabakh will be able to exercise its right to self- determination, Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian told a Wednesday news conference in Yerevan.
“The final agreement on settling the Karabakh conflict should proclaim the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to self- determination, which would be recognized by the international community, and we are ready to be flexible on the question of timing the realization of this right,” he said.
Armenia will not sign any treaty that does not recognize the right of Karabakh to self-determination, he said.
Speaking of the participation of Karabakh in the talks, Oskanian said that Armenia had faced an alternative – either refuse to continue talks with Azerbaijan without the participation of Nagorno-Karabakh, or agree to continue them for the sake of preserving the process. The Armenian leadership has chosen the latter option, he said.
“It is unimportant who holds the talks on the Armenian side, Armenia or Nagorno-Karabakh. What is being discussed at the talks is important. But sooner or later the time will come when the participation of Nagorno-Karabakh in the talks will become inevitable,” Oskanian said.
He reminded journalists that Nagorno-Karabakh had been a party to the talks until spring 1997.
In the middle of January 2005, Prague will host the next meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Azerbaijan lost control over Nagorno-Karabakh in an armed conflict with Armenia in the 1990s.
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