Davit Babayan: Vienna meeting – an attempt to revive the negotiations
As a result of the military operations unleashed by Azerbaijan in April, the negotiation process went into coma, and the Vienna meeting was an attempt to revive the process, Spokesperson of the Artsakh President, Davit Babayan told Panorama.am concerning the meeting of Presidents of Armenia and Azerbaijan in Vienna.
“It should be said, that from the beginning the meeting went quite successfully. The statements made are promising,” he said.
Babayan emphasized the importance of reassurances that there’s no military solution to the conflict.
“The next important point is that in the Minsk Group statement it is mentioned to follow the agreements of 1994 and 1995 unconditionally. This is of crucial importance. It goes to show that the international community is against any option of change in the political balance by force,” the spokesperson said reminding that Artsakh is a rightful party in those documents.
Babayan considers it significant that during and after the meeting, the participants stressed the importance of maintaining peace in the coming years and the development and application of mechanisms aiming towards it.
“It’s impossible for the negotiations to proceed without it. This is a multifaceted work requiring installation of technical resources, and equipment both along the Line of Contact between Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan and the Armenian-Azerbaijani state border. Those will allow to record when, where and who violated the ceasefire. Perhaps the major powers should use their cosmic abilities,” he said.
Babayan emphasized that Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs of Armenia and Azerbaijan, representatives of different international institutions should be involved in this.
The spokesperson also signified the agreement of expanding the existing Office of the Personal Representative of the OSCE Chairperson in Office.
“If the steps taken towards implementation of the agreements reached proceed naturally, then it will definitely have a positive result for the region. Although Azerbaijan gave its consent, it will continue hindering the process. As a terrorist and dictatorial country, Azerbaijan will continue violations of the ceasefire, it’s their style. There’s no other way,” he said.
Referring to the ceasefire violations by the Azerbaijani side, as a result of which an Armenian serviceman, Khachatur Harutyunyan, 1996 died on May 17, Babayan said that Azerbaijan continues its terrorist policy.
“The international community should me more stringent with Azerbaijan. Moreover, it should be determined in terms of developing and implementing investigation mechanisms for the situation to be controlled by the international community,” he said.