Armenia ready for Karabakh deal 'if Azerbaijan shows good sense'

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia is prepared for a peaceful settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh issue should the Azerbaijani authoroties show good sense, president Serzh Sargsyan told a Q&A session following his speech at the Munich Security Conference on Saturday, February 18.

In response to a very long question from an Azerbaijani diplomat, Sargsyan said the issue can be resolved only when the Azeri government gets down to reality, abandons its unrealistic expectations from the talks.

According to him, the people of Karabakh want to live in freedom in their historic homeland where they have a millennia-old legacy.

"You know very well why some regions of Azerbaijan came under the control of Karabakh’s self-defense forces. You know that the Karabakh people held a referendum in a civilized manner and appealed to the USSR Supreme Soviet to hand over the autonomous region of Karabakh from Azerbaijan to Armenia in the manner prescribed by the then applicable law of the Soviet Union," the president reminded.

"Instead, the Azerbaijani authorities tried to silence Karabakh people’s legitimate demands and wishes. I hate the war but it turned out that we had to create a security zone to protect ourselves."

Sargsyan repeated that the Armenian side is ready for a peaceful settlement of the Karabakh issue "should you show good sense - I do not mean the people of Azerbaijan, I mean the leadership of Azerbaijan - and actually proceed to negotiations realizing that the problem can only be resolved through compromises."

During the same Q&A session, Sargsyan said that it was the European Union, and not Armenia, to give up the signing of the Association Agreement.