Arkady Gukasyan: Armenia can recognize Nagorno Karabakh independence at any moment

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Armenia at any moment can recognize independence of Nagorno Karabakh, but it will not become solution to the problem, Nagorno Karabakh President Arkady Gyukasyan while giving a lecture at the Russian-Armenian University in Yerevan today. According to him, there is no such force in Armenia that opposes NKR independence, and if Yerevan and Stepanakert make a decision, Karabakh will be recognized as an independent state immediately, a REGNUM correspondent informs.

Arkady Gukasyan informed the students that in 1988, when the Karabakh movement started, a question of the Nagorno Karabakh Autonomy leaving the Azerbaijani SSR and joining the Armenian SSR was posed. Later, taking into account the fact that the Soviet Union collapsed and Karabakh was on the verge of war, it was decided to take the way of independence. “It was a compromise decision – not to make Karabakh joining either Armenia or Karabakh. The decision was admissible for the international community,” Arkady Gukasyan said. Besides, by this decision Stepanakert tried to relieve Armenia of additional complications and troubles, he noted.

“Why does Ilham Aliyev want to persuade the world that the conflict is between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but not with Nagorno Karabakh? Because in Baku there is an illusion that Armenia is aggressor that occupied Azerbaijani territories. Moreover, Azerbaijan hopes that the international community would take sanctions,” the NKR president announced.

According to him, if Nagorno Karabakh joins the Armenia-Azerbaijan format of talks, Baku will become the aggressor from the political point of view. “Nagorno Karabakh declared independence; as a result of the war imposed on it by Azerbaijan, it won the fight liberating its territories and seven then nearby Karabakh areas, so the status quo now is a result of the Azerbaijani aggression,” Arkady Gukasyan concluded.