In his remarks at the autumn session of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE) that opened in Yerevan on November 18 Simonian also stressed that Armenia is sincerely interested in settling relations with Turkey, in having open borders and transportation links in the region and in engaging in negotiations without preconditions.
“I have a great hope that these negotiations will yield the desired results in the near future,” Simonian said, stressing that the region needs peace.
He said that Armenia’s vision of peace is expressed in the Crossroads of Peace project that was recently unveiled by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian during an international forum in Tbilisi, Georgia.
According to the Armenian parliament speaker, the essence of the project is as follows: “All countries of the region live with open borders, roads and infrastructures, are connected with each other by active economic, political, cultural ties, have accumulated experience and tradition of solving all issues with the tools of diplomacy and dialogue.”
Addressing the same event, Pashinian regretted that “Yerevan and Baku still speak different diplomatic languages” and that “we often do not understand each other.”
Stressing that Azerbaijan has not yet made a public reference to the three principles that he said have already been agreed upon by the sides and did not reaffirm its commitment to those principles, Pashinian said that this deepens the atmosphere of mistrust.
“It also seems extremely suspicious that with the highest patronage in Azerbaijan and essentially at the official level, they have begun calling the Republic of Armenia ‘Western Azerbaijan.’ This seems to us to be a preparation for a new war, a new military aggression against Armenia, and it is one of the main obstacles to progress in the peace process,” the Armenian prime minister said.
The three-day session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly that is taking place in the Karen Demirchian Sports and Concert Complex in Yerevan has brought together about 300 lawmakers from 47 countries.
No delegates from Azerbaijan, Turkey and Russia are attending the session.
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