Prospering Armenia party favors "package settlement" for Karabakh conflict

"Prospering Armenia strongly advocates a package settlement of the Karabakh conflict, primarily because trust between Armenia and Azerbaijan has been at a zero level for the past few years," parliamentary deputy Avet Adonts of the Prospering Armenia party, who is also Armenia's special envoy and minister, told Interfax.

In the absence of trust one cannot discuss any step-by-step settlement, which is based essentially on mutual trust, he said.

"It is our conviction that absolutely all of the sides' prospective moves must be strictly documented, a timeframe for their implementation must be drawn up, after which settlement as such could begin," Adonts said.

Prospering Armenia wants a compromise to be attained on the Karabakh problem, but there are three issues on which Armenia's ability to compromise ends, he said. "We cannot show any flexibility or compromise, first, while handing the status problem, meaning that there is no alternative to Karabakh's independence; second, we cannot compromise on the issue of exhaustive security guarantees for the population of Nagorno Karabakh and, finally, on the issue of maintaining direct contact with Armenia," Adonts said.

Experts predict that Prospering Armenia could win 22%-27% of the vote in the Armenian parliamentary elections set for May 12. Interfax