Armenia is an outsider: Levon Zurabyan

Political forces in Armenia continue commenting on the recent OSCE summit in Astana.

In an interview with Capital Daily, Levon Zurabyan of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), shared his views over the OSCE leaders' joint statement concerning Karabakh conflict.

He finds that the statement is not in Armenia's interests.

"Armenia agreed that the conflict should be settled based on the principle of territorial integrity," he said.

Asked about his opinion on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's refusal to meet with President Serzh Sargsyan, Zurabyan said:
"Aliyev had greater ambitions. Serzh Sargsyan's consent to a conflict settlement format acceptable to Azerbaijan was not enough for him. What he wanted to achieve was the singing of a framework agreement or a roadmap specifying the steps for the withdrawal of the Armenian forces. Probably, the reason Aliyev avoided to meet with Sargsyan was the absence of specific timeframes. "

Speaking further on the issue, the opposition activist didn't rule out the possibility that such conduct might be accounted for by the weakening of Armenia's political-military positions against Azerbaijan's increasing power.

"To make sure of this, we need to just have a look at international documents on the Nagorno Karabakh conflict and see what process of evolution they went through from 1998 to 2010. Never before did the world community speak of the occupation of Azerbaijani territories. Nagorno Karabakh was a full-fledged party to the talks. Today, it is no longer a legal-political subject, with only Armenia and Azerbaijan being viewed as parties to the conflict. Instead of an independent political military subject, Nagorno Karabakh is currently treated as a disputed territory. This is the heaviest loss for Armenia's diplomacy. Perfectly realizing this, Aliyev makes démarches to extort more," Zurabyan added.