On April 11-21 there were military trainings in Karabakh headed by the Karabakh army head, general-lieutenant Seiran Ohanyan. The RA defense minister, security secretary Serj Sargsyan and the head of the RA army forces central board, Michael Harutyunyan were also present during the trainings.
The president of Karabakh, Arkadi Ghukasyan said that the army had to always be ready. “Everything is OK and these trainings are not against any party, these trainings are for improving our own military strength”, said Arkadi Ghukasyan.
According to the scenario of the trainings, the enemy had to attack, and our army forces had to stop them and give a counterattack. There were both ground and air protection forces used during these trainings, which demonstrated very good skills.
The participation of Karabakh will make the negotiations process more effective
“It is impossible to solve any problems without Karabakh and I think all parties understand this, as well as Azerbaijan. The sooner Karabakh is involved in the negotiations process, the better the process will become”, said the president of Karabakh, Arkadi Ghukasyan during the military trainings in Karabakh. He noted that the compromises made by Armenia depended on the compromises made by Azerbaijan and noted that if compromises are done, they had to be done by both parties.
In response to journalists’ question concerning organizing a referendum in Karabakh, Mr. Ghukasyan said, “Karabakh has already oriented and organized a referendum, but we all know that the world doesn’t recognize the results of that referendum. And now if we are given an opportunity and if they assure that Azerbaijan and the world will recognize the results of a referendum, we will discuss this issue and I don’t think there is anything wrong in it”. To the question whether he liked the achievements of Armenia in the negotiations process Mr. Ghukasyan answered, “We don’t have any reasons not to trust them and I think the Armenian authorities do their best to develop our interests during the negotiations. But please note that this process is not conducted for only one party and all parties have their interests. I don’t mean distrust, but its effectiveness and real format. We think the participation of Karabakh in the negotiations will make the process more effective and the international community will like it better this way”.
Political powers have big expectations from hearings
On April 21 there will be parliamentary hearings dedicated to the Karabakh conflict negotiations process in the parliament of Karabakh. Armenian deputies and representatives of different political powers and non-governmental organizations will also take part in the hearing.
Arkadi Ghukasyan said that he appreciated the efforts of the parliament of Karabakh and said that in the result of these hearings the parliament would make decisions and would fix its approach to the issue of Karabakh conflict.
The head of the “88’ Karabakh movement” parliamentary faction of the parliament of Karabakh, Armen Sargsyan thinks that these hearings are very important and says, “At first we will have to figure out what exactly has been done till now in the negotiations process. I think the biggest achievement that we have reached till now is peace and keeping peace, but alas this peace is very vulnerable now and there aren’t any fixed mechanisms to protect it. I think that we should also discuss our failures that we have had till now connected with the negotiations and fix our future approach. And the most important thing is that after the hearings we will not only finalize the results, but also will work out a concept of foreign policy of Karabakh”.
According to the head of the “Homeland” parliamentary faction of the parliament of Karabakh, Ara Harutyunyan, their faction has good expectations from the hearing too. “This is an opportunity for us to state our approach to the issue of the Karabakh conflict resolution. If we are speaking about compromises, about political solutions of the problem, we should also define in the Constitution of Karabakh that Karabakh has territories, which are controlled by the military forces of Karabakh. We will say during the hearings that all the compromises must be done based on the desire of the people”, said A. Harutyunyan.