Azernews.Az

Former Armenian president, presidential hopeful Levon Ter-Petrosian has called for altering Yerevan's approach to the long-lasting conflict over Upper (Nagorno) Garabagh.
"Armenia should change its philosophy in dealing with the problem. This is the only way to settle the conflict," he told a news conference Friday.
Upper Garabagh, which is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan, was occupied by Armenia in the early 1990s.
Ter-Petrosian, who is known for his terse criticism of President Robert Kocharian's administration, said the Armenian government has failed to take a single concrete step at resolving the dispute in the past 10 years. These failures, he said, lied at the core of his ideological struggle with the incumbent authorities in this period.
The presidential hopeful went on to say that the latest proposals by the co-chairmen of the mediating OSCE Minsk Group did not differ from the previous ones.
"I can only say that these proposals dwell upon the known plan for stage-by-stage conflict resolution. Only one element was supplemented this time - holding a referendum to determine the status of Upper Garabagh," Ter-Petrosian said.
He emphasized that the Minsk Group put forth a document outlining the conflict settlement for the first time in the past decade, in an indication that the peace process is getting an incentive unseen before.
Ter-Petrosian said he was familiar with the wording of the mentioned document but declined to comment on the matter.
Late in November, representatives of the three countries co-chairing the Minsk Group - France, Russia and the United States - presented in writing a set of basic principles for the peaceful settlement of the conflict to the Armenian and Azerbaijani governments.
Ter-Petrosian said solving the Garabagh problem was of vital importance for his country. "The solution of Armenia's national security issues should dwell upon not joining different security systems but forging good neighborliness relations and peaceful co-existence with its four neighbors - Azerbaijan, Georgia, Turkey and Iran."
Azerbaijan and Armenia have been locked in conflict for over a decade. Some 30,000 people had been killed and about a million driven from their homes as a result of hostilities. Peace talks that kicked off after the lengthy war ended with the signing of a cease-fire in 1994 but have brought little tangible result so far.