‘Tough’ Karabakh Negotiations Yield No Results

The document demands “immediate, complete and unconditional withdrawal of the Armenian armed forces from the Nagorno-Karabakh region and other occupied territories of Azerbaijan.” It also says that Karabakh’s predominantly Armenian population can only be granted “the status of self-rule … within Azerbaijan.”

By contrast, Mnatsakanyan insisted on Karabakh residents’ right to “maintain and determine a status outside the jurisdiction, sovereignty or territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.”

“Azerbaijan must assume direct commitment to recognition of the right to self-determination of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh by way of legally binding free expression of the will of the people living in Nagorno-Karabakh, the outcome of which should have no limitation,” he said.

“The government of Armenia will never engage in any activities which can violate the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to freely determine their political status or can deprive them of the ownership of this process,” he added.

The United States, Russia and France, the three world powers co-heading the OSCE Minsk Group, have repeatedly stated that Karabakh’s internationally recognized status should be determined through a “legally binding expression of will.” This is one of the main elements of their so-called Madrid Principles of the conflict’s resolution first put forward over a decade ago.

The proposed plebiscite would be held after the liberation of virtually seven districts around the former Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast which were fully or partly occupied by Karabakh Armenian forces during the 1991-1994 war.