I welcome the desire of the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to start a direct dialogue with Artsakh. Artsakh should be a subject in this process, Artsakh State Minister  Ruben Vardanyan wrote about this on his Facebook page.

 "I also welcome the creation of a new format of direct negotiations with international mediation. Among the international mediators, among Russia and the USA, France should definitely be included, whose senate's resolution adopted a few days ago contained a clause on the recognition of Nagorno Karabakh. Let me remind you that France is also a co-chair country of the OSCE Minsk Group.
I would also like to propose to switch to a more constructive tone and get clarifications on what, according to Mr. Aliyev, is my "clear agenda".  I have repeatedly emphasized that I renounced Russian citizenship in order to avoid accusations that I can protect someone else's interests in Artsakh, apart from the interests of the people of Artsakh. I think I fully meet the criteria of a negotiator proposed by Mr. Aliyev: "lives in Karabakh and wants to live there."

War always brings war.  Sometimes this happens even after several generations.  Aggression today is a ticking time bomb for the future generations of our two peoples. It means that the leaders of both sides must take full responsibility and, however difficult it may be, sit down at the negotiating table and stop the bloodshed," he wrote.

It should be reminded that today at the meeting with the delegation led by the EU Special Envoy for the Eastern Partnership, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev referred to the topic of the Nagorno Karabakh conflict.

"I think it is important for Armenia to clearly state what it really wants.  If they want to talk about the rights and security of Armenians in Karabakh, it will not work.  We are ready to talk about this with the Karabakh Armenians, but not with the those like Vardanyan sent by Moscow [Artsakh State Minister Ruben Vardanyan-ed.], who have billions of money stolen from the Russian people in their pockets.

 He was sent from Moscow to Karabakh with a very clear agenda.  We are ready to talk with people living in Karabakh.  By the way, this process has started.  If there was no intervention from some of the countries just mentioned, that is, from outside, and if there were no attempts to stop the process, then I think that the process could have been more dynamic," he said.