Starting constructive and positive dialogue with Azerbaijani president extremely important: Pashinyan

Nagorno Karabakh conflict remains the most important challenge for Armenia and the region, Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated in PACE today.

“As each democratic government, the Armenian government as well stands for exclusively peaceful settlement of the conflict. It is extremely important that we managed to start quite constructive and positive dialogue with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev but I am convinced that the dialogue of leaders only is not enough for resolving the issue. It is very important for the two publics to engage in dialogue too, it is important to prepare them for peace and not war,” Pashinyan said.

He stressed that social networks may become important platform for their dialogue but unfortunately Armenians and Azerbaijanis communicate there in bad language and hate speech.

“During the thirty years of the conflict we seem to have exhausted the words of hatred, the bad words and now we should have helped each other to understand each other’s positions, tried to find the reasons which do not allow us to be understandable for one another,” Pashinyan said, adding that he several times voiced from the tribune of Armenian parliament that Karabakh conflict settlement option must be acceptable for the peoples of Armenia, Artsakh and Azerbaijan.

“This is an unprecedented statement in our reality and in essence the formula which will give a chance to reach peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict. Unfortunately we do not hear same words from Azerbaijan, and I hope that the peace message voiced from this tribune will result in equivalent response from Azerbaijan,” the PM said.