NATO summit declaration not to affect Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, local experts believe

The declaration on the territorial integrity of the former Soviet republics, including Azerbaijan, signed at the NATO summit in Newport, will have no serious impact on the arrangement of the conflict in Nagorno-Karabakh, state Karabakh experts.

The only agreed format of the negotiation process is co-chairing of the OSCE Minsk Group represented by France, the United States, and Russia, and this fact is ambiguously stated in the text of the document. This was explained to the "Caucasian Knot" correspondent by the spokesperson of the press service of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MFA) of Nagorno-Karabakh.

"Today, it is quite clear that the international community is increasingly imbued with sympathy for the aspiration of the people of Artsakh to freedom and comes to the conclusion that the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is worthy to become a full member of the civilized community of nations. This trend has recently gained another example, when the Senate of the US State of California adopted the resolution in support of the right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination," said the spokesperson of the MFA of Nagorno-Karabakh.

Tigran Grigoryan, a political analyst and the editor-in-chief of the Karabakh e-newspaper "ArtsakhNews", has expressed the opinion that the document signed at the NATO summit by the Armenian President is declarative in nature.

"At this stage, we should admit that power centres and Azerbaijan, let alone the Armenian side, do not need an escalation in the conflict zone," the political analyst has concluded.