Stepanakert is satisfied with the results of the meeting between President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan and President of Azerbaijan Ilham Aliyev, as the second out of the three co-chair states said that there is no alternative to peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict, press-secretary of the Karabakh president, David Babayan, told ArmInfo correspondent.
"Our expectations regarding peaceful settlement of the Karabakh conflict are coming true. In is not accidental that after Moscow's statement about lack of options to peaceful settlement of the conflict, US Secretary of State John Kerry also said about it. This is a certain message addressed to Baku", - he said. He also emphasized that for final resolving of the conflict Azerbaijani authorities have to understand three facts - it is impossible to come back to the former status of Karabakh, the borders of Karabakh cannot be changed and it is necessary to return the NKR to the negotiating table.
"It is necessary to restore the Artsakh-Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiating format, and only in that case the negotiating process will gain a new impulse. Certainly, after changing of the format the conflict will not immediately resolved, but a strong foundation will be laid for a long-lasting peace", - Babayan said,
To recall, a tripartite meeting was held Thursday in Newport between Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and US Secretary of State John Kerry on the initiative of the American side. The officials discussed issues related to the current stage and the prospects of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict talks. The conflicting sides presented their respective positions with regard to the negotiation process. Reiterating that there is no alternative to the peaceful settlement and ruling out any attempt to escalate the situation, State Secretary Kerry urged the parties to find mechanisms for easing the tensions and develop confidence-building measures between the sides.
Stressing the need to continue the talks in the OSCE Minsk Group format, John Kerry expressed readiness to possibly back up the search of ways for conflict resolution. At the same time, he underscored that the two sides need to show strong commitment and political will on the way to peaceful settlement.