Armenia should move cautiously in Karabakh conflict peace talks: My Step lawmaker

The hastiness in Karabakh talks is not in Armenia’s interests, My Step faction lawmaker Tatevik Hayrapetyan told Aysor.am.

The lawmaker stressed that in this phase the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs are preparing a package of proposals of humanitarian events that will be discussed at the upcoming meeting of the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan.

“I think hastiness in this process does not stem from Armenia’s interests as we may make various proposals over the peace agenda but we must also understand what impact these proposals have in Azerbaijan,” she said, adding that the noise in Mkhitaryan’s case showed that much more serious steps should be done.

“I think we must move forward very cautiously, continuing claiming our agenda for the process not to suffer,” she said, adding that it is not that only Armenia must be interested in peaceful settlement of the conflict.

The lawmaker said that the peaceful settlement of the conflict is necessary not only for Armenia but Azerbaijan as well but the behavior of Azerbaijani leadership does not speak about it.

Among the humanitarian events, the lawmaker said are organization of journalists’ visits to Artsakh, Armenia while the Azerbaijani side opposes it, putting under doubt the statements of officials of the country about necessity of peaceful settlement of the conflict. Reciprocal visits of parents of captives are also possible.

“Peace must be the only possible variant for Azerbaijan to reach conflict settlement. It is necessary to work in that direction and understand how much this country is ready to respond to the offered humanitarian events,” the lawmaker stated.

Tatevik Hayrapetyan also added that Armenia’s proposal to return Artsakh to the table of negotiations is still in force.

“Until Karabakh returns to the negotiation table no solution will work. It is very important. After it, the options of settlement acceptable for Armenia, Artsakh and Azerbaijan will be discussed,” she said, adding that Armenia does not want military solution to the issue while it will be possible with the participation of all involved parties.

To the observation that the Azerbaijani side opposes the claims of the Armenian side to restore the trilateral format, Hayrapetyan said that if that was not a weighty provision they would not have exerted so much efforts to prevent it.