After the two-hour negotiations with President of Nagorno Karabakh Arkadi Ghukasyan in Yerevan a couple of days ago, special representative of the European Union in the Southern Caucasus Peter Semnebi announced that the European Union needs to keep in touch with Nagorno Karabakh.
“We need to listen and communicate with all sides of the conflict. The people of Nagorno Karabakh is an important factor and I’m sorry that we haven’t reached a satisfactory level of communication until now,” said Semnebi to the “Azatutyun” radio station. Semnebi said that he wanted to visit Nagorno Karabakh but wasn’t able to make the trip due to “different reasons” and met with Ghukasyan in Yerevan. One of the reasons, according to him, was that his visit to Karabakh during the constitutional referendum may have given way for different interpretations.
“But that doesn’t mean that I am never going to visit Karabakh. In fact, I’m getting ready to go there very soon and I hope that my trip will be very effective,” said P. Semnebi.
Semnebi says that he and the Karabakh president have discussed a variety of issues, including the issue of the constitutional referendum of Karabakh which, as Semnebi recalled, the European Union already has its role on that and says that the referendum may create obstacles for the conflict negotiations process.
“We realize that there is a high level of democratic culture in Nagorno Karabakh and that’s a good thing. As for the referendum, it includes other principles, which we can’t agree with. The referendum foretells issues, which must be solved through the means of negotiations, including the status of Karabakh,” said the EU special representative. Referring to the announcement made by Armenian President Robert Kocharyan a couple of days ago, according to which there will be no active negotiations until the upcoming 2007 Armenian legislative elections, Semnebi said:
“I don’t want to interpret the president’s statement, but I hope that the active negotiations of the past couple of weeks will keep going at this rate. I hope that we can keep the active negotiations process during the pre-election campaign as well.”
Peter Semnebi also met with Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanyan and President of Armenia Robert Kocharyan. Kocharyan and the European Union special representative discussed the latest developments of the Karabakh conflict negotiations and the recent constitutional referendum. They also referred to the upcoming Armenian parliamentary elections, placing emphasis on the correspondence to international norms. Robert Kocharyan said that he believed that the relations between Armenia and the European Union will enter a more coordinated stage starting next year. According to the president, currently there is a try to separate next year’s main supremacies of the general program of Activities in light of the European Neighborhood Policy and clarify the mechanisms of working with the European Commission.