Armenian-Turkish rapprochement not linked to Karabakh-Azerbaijani conflict

PanARMENIAN.Net - Turkish Premier's visit to Moscow and Russian Foreign Minister's visit to Yerevan proved that RA-Turkish rapprochement and Karabkh conflict settlement are separate processes, said Republican parliamentary group member Gagik Minasyan.



"During the meeting with Mr. Erdogan, Russia's Putin stressed that the processes are not linked to one another while Mr. Lavrov announced in Yerevan that Russia and Turkey's economic interests could not be superior to NKR people's right to self-determination," the MP told Monday a news conference.



At that, he noted that the world community makes a clear-clear distinction between the two problems as it has no about the time of settling the Artsakh conflict.



The Republican Party of Armenia is a national conservative political party in Armenia. It was the first political party in independent Armenia to be founded (2 April 1990) and registered (14 May 1991). It is the largest party of the centre-right in Armenia, and claims to have 140,000 members. The party controls most government bodies in Armenia.



At the 2003 parliamentary elections on May 25, the party received 23.5% of the popular vote, winning 31 out of 131 seats. At the last parliamentary elections on May 12, 2007, the party received 33.91% of the popular vote, winning 64 out of 131 seats. The former prime minister, Andranik Markaryan, was the leader of the party. Current President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, is the chairman of RPA board.



The Artsakh Republic (Nagorno Karabakh) is a de facto independent republic located in the South Caucasus, bordering by Azerbaijan to the north and east, Iran to the south, and Armenia to the west.



After the Soviet Union established control over the area, in 1923 it formed the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) within the Azerbaijan SSR. In the final years of the Soviet Union, Azerbaijan launched an ethnic cleansing which resulted in the Karabakh War that was fought from 1991 to 1994.



Since the ceasefire in 1994, most of Nagorno Karabakh and several regions of Azerbaijan around it (the security zone) remain under the control of Nagorno Karabakh defense army.