Tuesday, June 17 2014

On Monday morning session of NATO Parliamentary Assembly seminar Rose Roth in Baku the topic of the Karabakh conflict led to a quarrel between Armenian and Azerbaijani MPs.

As the correspondent of Turan reported, during the discussion on the resolution of the conflict, Richard Kiragosyan and Tevan Poghosyan from Armenia made statements that the use of the term "occupation" is not acceptable. According to them, what happened in Nagorno-Karabakh was "a popular movement" and "opposition to the violation of their civil rights," so talking about the "Armenian aggression" against Azerbaijan is impossible.

They also raised the issue that the settlement is impossible without the participation of Nagorno-Karabakh in the negotiations.
In turn, representatives of Azerbaijan Ziyafet Askerov, Siyavush Novruzov and Zahid Oruj said that Armenia "is directly related to aggression, as evidenced by four UN resolutions ignored by the Armenian side."

"How can you say that Armenia has no relation to the conflict if all the Armenian leadership now consists of Karabakh separatists, if Armenia pays pensions to war veterans with Azerbaijan and so on? Attempts to justify the aggression of the Armenian side and to present it as a struggle for self- determination only give birth to the question of conflict resolution in an impasse, noted representatives of Azerbaijan," the Azerbaijani MPs said.

After presiding over this seminar Hugh Bailey called on the parties to move the discussion into a "constructive dialogue." 

According to APA, the head of Armenian delegation to the NATO PA Koryun Nahapetyan, who spoke on behalf of Armenian delegation, protested against LINKS Analysis Director Dennis Sammut's speech. He urgently demanded that Nagorno Karabakh Republic should also be noted as a side of the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict together with Armenia and Azerbaijan in these discussions. 

Poghosyan told Sammut and some other experts that they supported the position of official Baku because of the seminar was held in Azerbaijan.