Question: Mr. Kocharian, what is your comment on Azerbaijan’s attempts to put the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh on an equal level with the population of Nagorno-Karabakh Republic through inter-community dialogue.

Answer: If official Baku is genuinely interested in the organization of an intercommunity dialogue, it must first of all, undertake steps toward organizing of an intercommunity dialogue between the hundreds of thousands of Armenians displaced from Azerbaijan and the Azerbaijanis living in Azerbaijan. That would grant the Azerbaijani leadership the moral right to address to the NKR’s authorities to initiate an inter-community dialogue, as well.

The Armenian sides greatly stress the importance of strengthening of confidence-building measures, which is a complete package consisting of numerous components. These components are the refusal of state propaganda of hatred and hostility between the peoples and warlike rhetoric, preservation rather than destruction of the historical and cultural heritage of their neighbor people, the consolidation of the ceasefire, the withdrawal of snipers from the line of contact and the cooperation in different spheres, as well as the promotion of contacts and dialogue among the different layers of the societies.

Azerbaijan has a selective approach to the existing problems, singling out the components which are in its favor and distorting the essence of the problem to the detriment of both the creation of confidence-building atmosphere, which is necessary for a comprehensive settlement, and the settlement process itself. The selective and distorted interpretation of the Madrid principles is a proof of it, which resulted in the previously approved Madrid proposals’ failure in Kazan by the Azerbaijani leadership.