President Serzh Sargsyan has said that Armenia is ready to compromise to settle the conflict with Azerbaijan over Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Armenia has stated that it is ready for a peaceful resolution of the conflict based on compromise. The OSCE Minsk Group is dealing with it. Its co-chair countries are trying to find the best solution with the participation of the parties to the conflict,” Sargsyan told a joint press conference with Latvian President Valdis Zatlers on Wednesday in Riga.
The Armenian leader said that in 2007 the Minsk Group co-chairs had proposed a settlement based on three principles: a nation’s right to self-determination, the non-use of force and territorial integrity. “Armenia is ready to move forward based on these principles and to sign a comprehensive agreement,” Sargsyan said.
The competing claims of territorial integrity, which Azerbaijan insists takes precedence in the case of Karabakh, and self-determination, which Armenia wants to see for the Armenians of Karabakh, lie at the heart of the conflict. It has been impossible to reconcile the two principles to date.
President Serzh Sargsyan told the press conference that Armenia was committed to a peaceful resolution of the Karabakh conflict within the framework of the OSCE Minsk Group.
Latvian President Valdis Zatlers said that Riga, too, supported peace.
“Latvia supports a peaceful resolution to the conflict only through negotiations,” Zatlers said.
He said the Minsk Group was the best guarantee of a peaceful solution to the Karabakh conflict and that any actions leading to an escalation of the situation in the conflict zone were unacceptable to Riga.
An Azerbaijani child was killed by Armenian sniper fire near the front line separating the two countries' troops on Tuesday. This was just three days after the Armenian, Azerbaijani and Russian presidents pledged in Sochi to seek to "resolve all contentious issues peacefully".
Armenian-Latvian cooperation
The press conference followed a meeting in which the two presidents noted the development of Armenian-Latvian political dialogue and of relations in education, culture and other spheres.
They raised the need to create an Armenian-Latvian inter-governmental committee and to open embassies in Yerevan and Riga.
Serzh Sargsyan and Valdis Zatlers signed a program for cooperation in culture in 2011-2013 and an agreement on cooperation between the foreign ministries.
The two leaders also attended the opening of an Armenian-Latvian business forum.
During his official visit to Latvia, President Sargsyan visited the Latvian parliament to meet speaker Solvita Aboltina. They discussed inter-parliamentary cooperation and stressed the high level of relations between the countries’ parliaments, the Armenian presidential press service reports.
President Sargsyan said that Armenia was interested in Latvia’s experience of cooperation with the EU, including on bringing legislation into compliance with European standards.
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