Whole society must decide in favor of Nagorno-Karabakh recognition – Suren Zolyan

In an interview with Tert.am, political scientist Suren Zolyan commented on the Armenian government’s conclusion on the bill recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh.

Regrettably, Armenia’s authorities change in the course of time, while the approach to recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh remains unchanged.

Mr Zolyan, what do you think of the process of recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh, the government’s conclusion, which has not been properly perceived due to being uncertain, with following international media reports on Armenia recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence? The Armenian premier’s spokesman offered explanations.

I do not think the government would make a right step by approving such a decision without public or political debates – regardless of whether it would be a positive or negative decision. I believe this issue is the basis of Armenia’s politics. In this case, I consider myself a person concerned with the issue because I raised this issue or the first time in a bill submitted to the Supreme Council of Armenia as far back as 1992 – recognizing the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic because the newly formed Supreme Council of Nagorno-Karabakh applied to world parliaments for recognition. At that time, the issue was delayed not because of our fundamental objections. Rather, we proposed putting the bill on the agenda as an urgent issue and creating necessary conditions for that. Similar issues, and this particular one, must become prehistory of Armenia’s politics. That is, there may be a certain deadline. However, if negotiations do not produce any result, we recognize [Nagorno-Karabakh]. I can cite Kosovo’s example, when certain terms were set before Serbian authorities: the international community would take a relevant step if they did not recognize within a certain deadline. Of course, it requires preparatory work, which has not recently been done because every time the issue was raised war was in question. In this respect, I think we should consider serious debates rather than today’s meeting. I think that, without expert opinions and political decisions based on them – with the whole society involved – adopting such a decision would not be right.