Pashinyan Seeks to Restore Negotiation Format on Artsakh Issue from Ter-Petrosyan's Era: Leon Zurabyan

According to "168 Hours," "The Armenian authorities have not yet presented any vision for the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict," said the Vice President of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), Leon Zurabyan, during the "Review" program on 168TV, commenting on the current government's approach to the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process.

He stated that we need to understand that negotiations concerning the Nagorno-Karabakh issue are divided into two categories of questions. One of them, according to him, is the problem of confidence-building, which means that the parties shoot less at each other and trust each other more; that is, not only the authorities but also the peoples need to improve the atmosphere. However, there may be an even more important issue related to the formula for solving the Nagorno-Karabakh problem. In other words, what formula should be used to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue?

These are interconnected but, nevertheless, different questions, and we need to understand that according to the existing tradition, Azerbaijan is naturally more focused on the formula and substantive solution, while the Armenian side is more concentrated on confidence-building issues. However, what does this mean? Because Azerbaijan is not satisfied with the status quo, and Azerbaijan's position is that there are two options: either we solve the problem through negotiations or through war. And if the confidence-building measures are deepened without a substantive solution, this, in some sense, deprives Azerbaijan of the opportunity to resolve the issue through military means.

Therefore, there is such a dynamic. I should note that until now the Armenian side has not engaged in substantial discussions during Pashinyan's tenure, post-revolution, and there have been certain grounds for this. Those grounds are connected to the fact that the negotiation format inherited by Nikol Pashinyan does not suit him. He seeks to return to the format that was established during Levon Ter-Petrosyan's time.

Moreover, Levon Ter-Petrosyan did not easily establish that format, as in 1992, when the OSCE began to address this issue, no one recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as a party to the conflict, and the negotiations were conducted in the Armenia-Azerbaijan format. But after years of diplomatic work and military successes, he managed to achieve in 1994 that Nagorno-Karabakh was recognized as an independent negotiator and party to the conflict during the famous OSCE summit, which I consider our greatest achievement, as it allowed Nagorno-Karabakh to take a significant step towards international recognition of its independence.

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