Armenian President Says Karabakh's Residents Should Decide on Fate of Region

The residents of Azerbaijan's Armenian-dominated breakaway region of Nagorno-Karabakh have to decide for themselves the status of their region and all other parties should respect their wishes, Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan said Saturday.

YEREVAN (Sputnik) — Sargsyan highlited that neither Azerbaijan, nor Armenia should interfere with the process of the region's self-determination.

"They [Nagorno-Karabakh residents] have to decide themselves in what status they want to live. Nobody has the right to force them into anything, not Azerbaijan, not Armenia, not anyone else. We have to support their wishes," Sargsyan said, as quoted by Armenian news.am outlet, at a meeting with former servicemen in the Armenian town of Dilijan.

The Armenian president noted that the negotiations on the status of the region had never before been so close to success and said that the international community agreed that the opinion of the region's residents was the most important to consider in this matter.

Nagorno-Karabakh proclaimed its independence in 1991. After the military conflict ended in 1994, Azerbaijan lost control over the region.

Violence erupted in Nagorno-Karabakh on April 2, 2016, and led to multiple casualties. The parties to the conflict signed a Russian-brokered ceasefire on April 5, but mutual accusations have not stopped so far.

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