Artsakh parliament speaker hints presidency plans

11:12 • 17.05.19

Politics

In an interview with Tert.am, the president of Nagorno-Karabakh’s (Artsakh) National Assembly shared his views on the developing relations between the two Armenian republics (since last year’s political changes), addressing, among other things, also the unresolved Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict and the domestic political life in his country.

Ashot Ghulyan also did not rule out the possibility of running in the country’s 2020 presidential election. He said that the issue was thoroughly discussed with members of the People’s Party of Artsakh at a recent council meeting. “I believe we will have the most active engagement in both the local government and nationwide elections. There is such a demand today for a political party to run for presidential election, so I think we will respond to that question soon,” he said.

Addressing the political situation in Armenia after last year’s revolutionary developments, Ghulyan admitted that they observe a new quality of public relations between the new Armenian government and the authorities of Artsakh. “Notwithstanding all the existing specificities, we did manage to maintain also the brotherly and friendly ties. But that certainly does not rule out any disagreements when it comes to our working relations. Yet, I am confident those disagreements are absolutely natural and objective. The key task for all of us now is to keep going the normal relations between the two Armenian states, which we certainly manage to do.”

Ghulyan insisted that there was no attempt by the current authorities of Armenia to intervene in their country’s domestic affairs. In his words, the two states have reached the necessary level of integration to create a single system in different separate areas (such as in the defense sector, national security, education, culture and the financial sector).

Asked to comment on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s call for returning Artsakh to the negotiations, the parliament speaker agreed that his statements are quite logical and "devoid of any intrigue". “That’s very natural. After those changes, we now try to develop a new kind of standpoint on the entire package dealing with the Karabakh issue. The fact is we do not have a serious progress in the negotiation process; on the contrary, we are facing a deadlock which was created in the past years as a result of the [international] mediators’ willingness to please Azerbaijan by meeting their whims half-way.”

The politician agreed that the emphasis on re-establishing Artsakh’s status as an independent negotiating party is absolutely correct, especially in light of the attempts to demonstrate that the stalemate over the past years was due to the country’s indirect involvement in the process. “When Atsakh was a direct negotiating party, we could really manage to reach legally important political formulations,” he noted.

Asked to comment on the transparency of the negotiations over the past years, Ghulyan said that certain specificities in the process “are not subject to any debate or publication”. “That’s, on the one hand, logical as a working option given that the negotiations may address absolutely any topic, but the important thing is the outcome attained. I think it may sound naïve to talk about transparency nowadays because what may be a confidential today will not be so tomorrow. It is naïve to believe that maintaining confidentiality in the negotiation process is possible at all for so many years. What I say for sure is Artsakh is aware of the ongoing processes, but I cannot insist that all the rejected working options are being presented at all,” he added.

news.view.author Betghehem Arabyan