Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan made an astonishing statement in an interview with the Armenia broadcaster, which causes us to think deeply about the future of the peace talks on the Armenian-Azerbaijani Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. Moreover, Sargsyan's words shed light on the reasons for the lack of progress of international (not least Russian) diplomatic mediation in the conflict over the past years.
"As for the concessions, for the last 20 years we have never spoken about them, nowhere and in no way. We have always pushed and continue to talk about a compromise. These are different things. I am sure that if this issue is not resolved for another 20 years, the Armenian side will never have a desire to ease the situation through concessions. Because this is a disastrous way," the president said in an interview with the 'R-Evolution' program of the Armenia broadcaster.
Judging by this statement, President Serzh Sargsyan simply does not know what 'a compromise' means, although he actively uses this word. If the Armenian President opened, for example, the dictionary of Ozhegov and flipped through the words starting with 'K', then in a short note about the meaning of the word 'compromise' he would discover a key for the understanding of the essence of the negotiation process thing: "A compromise is the act of coming to an agreement by means of mutual concession".
That is, when Sargsyan declares that the Armenian side "have never spoken about concessions, but continues to talk about a compromise," he doesn't make sense. Saying that a "compromise" and "concessions" are different concepts, he only confirms fears about the inadequacy of the Armenian side's perception of the principle of any compromise settlement of the conflict, which a priori assumes mutual concessions.
Once President Vladimir Putin, without concealing his irony, presented an English self study book to the President of the Russian Football Union Vitaly Mutko on his birthday - probably to avoid repeating such legendary phrases like "Tomorrow will be a meeting of Euroassociation, mozhet budet recommendation" in the future. We can only hope that the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs will present an explanatory dictionary to Serzh Sargsyan in the near future - then the negotiations around Nagorno-Karabakh is about to move forward. After all, before heading into the jungle of the 'Madrid principles', the 'Kazan formula' and other subtleties of the negotiation process, the most basic and elementary concepts used by mediators should be explained to the Armenian side.
