Referendums becoming important tool for settling ethnic conflicts – Sargsyan

YEREVAN, September 22. /ARKA/. Referendums are more and more widely used as a legal instrument for settling modern ethnic conflicts, Armenia’s president Serzh Sargsyan said in responding the question about the vote in Scotland on September 18.

The referendum held in Scotland on Thursday said No to independence from the UK - 1,176,952 voted for and 1,397,077 voted against the independence.

The important this, irrespective of the outcome, is that the Scottish people was given an opportunity to exercise its right to self-determination, Armenian president said at a meeting with journalists during his official visit to Vatikan.

“I cannot overstate my admiration for the UK government and the people who chose a democratic method to solve the problem “, Armenia’s president said.

In terms of the global community, the important thing is that the future status of a people has been determined through peaceful means, the president said.

“In the beginning of the 90ies the people of Nagorno-Karabakh also tried to determine their future peacefully, in a referendum, but the Azerbaijani authorities responded with massacres in Baku and Sumgayit, mass deportations and, finally, with a war”, the president said.

According to Sargsyan, referendums are gradually becoming an important tool for peaceful settlement of modern conflicts.

“It is not by chance that 20 years later the peaceful settlement proposed by OSCE Minsk Group on Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is based on the right of Nagorno-Karabakh to determine its future through a referendum”, Sargsyan said.

The Karabakh conflict started in 1988 when prevailingly Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh declared withdrawal from Azerbaijan. On December 10, 1991, a referendum was held in Nagorno-Karabakh where 99.89% voted for independence from Azerbaijan. 

Azerbaijan responded by large-scale military operations that led to loss of control not only over Nagorno-Karabakh itself, but also over seven adjoining areas. About 25-30 thousand people were killed and about a million had to leave their homes during the military operations. 

A trilateral cease-fire agreement was signed on May 12, 2004, and has been followed since then. 

The ongoing Karabakh peace process started in 1992 under auspices of OSCE Minsk Group co-chaired by the USA, Russia and France. –0--