Video: I Have Proposed Radical Changes to the Logic of Negotiations, Oskanian

The former Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia, Vardan Oskanian, has sent a video message addressing the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan and the negotiations regarding the resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.

He noted that his recent proposal did not imply that the issues would be resolved in three months. “I have suggested making radical changes to the logic, philosophy, and narrative of the negotiations, not to solve the problem in three months,” he stated, referring to criticisms from representatives of the current government suggesting that “if Oskanian could resolve the issue, he should have done so during his ten years in office.”

During his tenure, he was able to change the negotiation’s logic, philosophy, and narrative surrounding the Karabakh issue from the Lisbon logic, where more than 50 OSCE member countries declared in 1996 that the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh should be resolved within the framework of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. He brought that narrative to a point where the international community and mediators presented as their final proposal that “we have worked for so many years,” leading to the conclusion that the issue should be resolved based on the principle of self-determination of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the diplomat explained.

According to him, the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to self-determination was enshrined in the negotiation documents. “This was also possible thanks to the fact that in Lisbon, when this declaration was made, Levon Ter-Petrosyan immediately stifled the essence of this proposal right on the spot by opposing it. And by clearly telling the entire public that it cannot be like that, it cannot be. Unlike Pashinyan, who went into absurd explanations about how things were before, he remained principled in his position. After that, Kocharian gave me a clear mandate to change the established negotiation logic, to bring new issues to the agenda, and with the help of our diplomats, I was able to effect that change,” Oskanian said.

“After that, the third president was able to maintain that negotiation logic. Pashinyan, on the other hand, simply pulverized all that, he pulverized it through his statements, his diplomatic clumsiness, and contradictory statements; he simply pulverized it. And today we have what we have,” noted the former foreign minister. Vardan Oskanian once again emphasized that it is still possible to introduce changes in negotiations.