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By Emil Danielyan and Tigran Avetisian<\/span><\/p>\n President Serzh Sarkisian pledged to initiate an \u201cactive\u201d public debate on how to resolve the conflict with Azerbaijan and accused his opponents of exploiting the issue after inspecting frontline positions of Nagorno-Karabakh\u2019s army over the weekend.<\/p>\n Sarkisian traveled to Karabakh to attend military exercises conducted by Karabakh Armenian forces. He then visited sections of the heavily militarized Armenian-Azerbaijani line of contact east of the disputed territory.<\/p>\n Speaking to Armenian Public Television afterwards, a uniform-clad Sarkisian acknowledged that internationally sponsored efforts to resolve the Karabakh conflict have entered an \u201cactive phase.\u201d \u201cI strongly believe that we will enter a period of much more active public discussions,\u201d he said. \u201cDiscussions are always useful but they must center only on the interests of the Armenian people. We have invested too much effort into the settlement of the Karabakh problem to turn a blind eye on or to ignore instances of exploitation [of the issue.]\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cWe are achieving an important historical objective, and if someone is trying to pursue other interests, then that is not moral,\u201d he added.<\/p>\n It was an apparent reference to opposition leader Levon Ter-Petrosian\u2019s October 17 speech in which he accused Sarkisian of being willing to \u201cput up Karabakh for sale\u201d in return for earning the West\u2019s support for his continued rule. Ter-Petrosian claimed that Sarkisian is even ready to agree to Russia\u2019s replacement by Turkey at the OSCE Minsk Group helm. Newspapers supporting Ter-Petrosian have also seized on Turkish President Abdullah Gul\u2019s reported claims that Sarkisian himself asked Ankara to mediate in Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations.<\/p>\n Sarkisian denied the claims attributed to Gul, insisting that he believes Turkey can only \u201cassist\u201d in the Karabakh peace process. \u201cYes, I am convinced that Turkey can assist and, I think, is now assisting in the process of the Karabakh conflict resolution,\u201d he said. \u201cPresident Gul\u2019s [September 6] visit to Yerevan, the continuation of Turkish-Armenian negotiations is a very good example of solving very difficult problems.\u201d Turkish contribution to Karabakh peace will be even greater if Ankara opens the Turkish-Armenian border and establishes diplomatic relations with Yerevan, he added.<\/p>\n Sarkisian further described as \u201cvery legitimate\u201d Russian President Dmitry Medvedev\u2019s efforts to host the next, potentially decisive, meeting of his Armenian and Azerbaijani counterparts. But he would not say when that meeting could take place and what its chances of success are.<\/p>\n \u201cA resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is possible if Azerbaijan recognizes the Nagorno-Karabakh people\u2019s right to self-determination, if Nagorno-Karabakh has a land border with Armenia, and if international organizations and leading nations guarantee the security of the Nagorno-Karabakh people,\u201d stated the Armenian president.<\/p>\n Sarkisian\u2019s newly reelected Azerbaijani counterpart, Ilham Aliev, repeated on Friday that Baku will never recognize Karabakh\u2019s secession from Azerbaijan.<\/p>\n The U.S., Russian and French diplomats co-chairing the OSCE Minsk Group were due to visit the conflict zone this week in line with their pledges to step up the search for Karabakh peace after the October 15 presidential election in Azerbaijan. But the group\u2019s French co-chair, Bernard Fassier, said late last week that the trip has been postponed.<\/p>\n Analysts in Yerevan were on Monday divided over possible reasons for the delay. Manvel Sargsian, a Karabakh expert at the Armenian Center for National International Studies, attributed it to Medvedev\u2019s initiative. \u201cIt looks as though a new situation has arisen after that statement and the parties are chewing over their next steps,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n But Gagik Harutiunian, director of the Noravank Foundation, believes that the United States and France have no problem with Russia\u2019s unilateral push for a Karabakh settlement. \u201cThe situation is such that they may have chosen not to meddle in the ongoing process to avoid disrupting it,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n Richard Giragosian, a Yerevan-based U.S. analyst, likewise saw no U.S.-Armenian disagreements on Karabakh. \u201cMoscow and Washington have actually moved even closer to each other in the Minsk Group,\u201d he told RFE\/RL.<\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 \u00a0 By Emil Danielyan and Tigran Avetisian President Serzh Sarkisian pledged to initiate an \u201cactive\u201d public debate on how to resolve the conflict with Azerbaijan and accused his opponents of exploiting the issue after inspecting frontline positions of Nagorno-Karabakh\u2019s army over the weekend. Sarkisian traveled to Karabakh to attend military exercises […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":83,"featured_media":783838,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,41],"tags":[204],"class_list":["post-6353","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-armenia","category-azerbaijan","tag-nagorno-karabakh"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6353","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/83"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6353"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6353\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/783838"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6353"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6353"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.turkishnews.com\/en\/content\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6353"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}