Preservation of peace in our complex region is a vitally important task, Armenian President Robert Kocharian stated at the sitting ceremony on the occasion the 13-th anniversary of independence of Armenia last evening. In his words, comprehensive cooperation between all countries of the region is an effective means to that end. R. Kocharian noted that in the Nagorno Karabakh issue Armenia keeps its adherence to the principle of peaceful settlement of the problem, which should be based on the objective reality formed in the course of the collapse of the USSR, namely "the irrefutable fact of the existence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic."