If Baku agrees, dialogue on return of Artsakh Armenians could begin very soon — Sarkis Shahinian

The upper house of the Swiss parliament, the Council of States, adopted a motion titled “Peace Forum for Nagorno-Karabakh: Enabling the Return of Armenians.” 29 out of 46 MPs voted in favor of the initiative, which calls on the Swiss government to create a separate platform for dialogue between representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan. Alpha News discussed this with Sarkis Shahinian, Secretary General of the Switzerland-Armenia Parliamentary Group.

“Whether this platform will be created or not depends on the representatives of Azerbaijan, Armenia and, most importantly, Artsakh. This means that in a year the Foreign Ministry could come and say that they tried, but it didn’t work. The authors of the resolution are two MPs who are also part of the Foreign Affairs Committee. The two main poles of the platform are Azerbaijan and the representatives of the people of Artsakh, and Armenia does not necessarily have to get involved in all this, especially now, when the country has a number of issues that need to be solved,” Shahinian noted.

According to him, if Azerbaijan refuses to negotiate with representatives of the people of Artsakh, Switzerland will no longer be able to do anything.

“The resolution makes no mention of the status of the people of Artsakh but emphasizes security. And if Baku agrees, the dialogue on the return of the people of Artsakh could begin very soon. However, I highly doubt that Azerbaijan will show readiness. In this case, Switzerland will not be able to do anything,” Shahinian concluded.