page_title: Serzh Sargsyan
section_title: Nagorno-Karabakh
hierarchical_section_title: Serzh Sargsyan / Presidency (2008–2018) / Foreign policy / Nagorno-Karabakh
caption_attribution_description: Русский: Посещение турнира по боевому самбо. С И.Алиевым (слева) и С.Саргсяном
context_page_description: Serzh Sargsyan is an Armenian politician who served twice as the Prime Minister of Armenia and was the third President of Armenia, from 2008 to 2018. He won the February 2008 presidential election with the backing of the ruling Republican Party of Armenia, a party in which he serves as chairman, and took office in April 2008. On 18 February 2013, he was re-elected as president and served the entire term.
  Despite pledging in 2014 not to become Prime Minister again while supporting an amendment of the constitution in 2015 that would allow it, Sargsyan was again elected Prime Minister of Armenia in April 2018, in what opposition figures described as a "power grab". Six days after taking office, Sargsyan resigned after large-scale protests. Sargsyan is currently the leader of the Republican Party, which from 1995 to 2018 held a majority in Armenia's National Assembly.
context_section_description: Sargsyan made his first address in front of the 63rd session of the United Nations General Assembly in New York on 25 September 2008. In his speech he referenced the 2008 South Ossetia conflict and emphasized the need for the United Nations to help bring peaceful resolution to armed conflicts around the world, including the one in Nagorno-Karabakh. He also mentioned how Azerbaijan's military buildup along with increasing war rhetoric and threats risked causing renewed problems in the South Caucasus.
  Sargsyan continues the policy towards the peaceful resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict pursued by his predecessors, which constitutes one of the main goals of the Armenian foreign policy. Sargsyan has repeatedly stated that the Armenian side is interested in finding a just and exclusively peaceful solution to the conflict and that the OSCE Minsk Group is the viable format within which the peace talks should continue. He has thus continued the negotiations with Azerbaijan and has had a number of meetings with the president of Azerbaijan within the framework of OSCE Minsk Group. On 2 November 2008, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan traveled to Moscow for talks with Dmitry Medvedev. The talks ended in the three Presidents signing a declaration confirming their commitment to continue talks. The two presidents met again since then, in 2009 in Saint Petersburg and on 22 November 2009, together with several world leaders, in Munich where President Aliyev once more threatened to resort to military force to reestablish control over the region if the two sides did not reach an agreeable settlement.
  Sargsyan blames the Azerbaijani side for hampering the peace process and for pursuing an openly anti-Armenian stance. According to him the anti-Armenian policies of Azerbaijan, such as "state-supported falsifications of history", "hostile propaganda against Armenia and Armenians" and "military build-up" prove that Azerbaijan does not want peace.
  The most vivid expression of anti-Armenian policies of Azerbaijan was the hero's welcome given to the convicted ax murderer Ramil Safarov who had brutally killed Armenian officer Gurgen Margaryan during the NATO's Partnership for Peace program in Budapest in 2004. The fact that after his extradition to Azerbaijan in 2012 Safarov was pardoned by president Aliyev, promoted to the rank of major, given an apartment with over eight years of back pay and was made a national hero, hampers the negotiation process and proves, in Sargsyan's words, that "the Azeri propaganda brings up an entire generation in the atmosphere of xenophobia and intolerance." 
  
  Sargsyan has also clearly stated:
  The Armenophobic and aggressive stance of Azerbaijan reinforces our conviction that Nagorno-Karabakh has no future within Azerbaijan. Moreover, Azerbaijan has neither legal nor political or moral grounds to claim over Nagorno-Karabakh.
  In his speech made at the British Chatham House Sargsyan said: 
  Our belief is that the settlement of the Karabakh conflict should be based on human rights and the will of the Karabakh people… It is the only way to achieve lasting, feasible, and peaceful settlement. The alternative to this settlement is the forcing of the Karabakh people back into Azerbaijan, which will inevitably lead to attempts of new ethnic cleansing of Armenians in Karabakh. There is no alternative here.”
  Responding to the persistent war rhetoric of Azerbaijan, Sargsyan has condemned it as a violation of the norms of the international law, as the parties had signed a truce which Azerbaijan, the "defeated aggressor", had asked for.
  He has repeatedly said that his country is categorically against the resumption of military hostilities, but at the same time is ready to counter any military aggression. As he put it, "We don't want war and never wanted, but at that time [i.e. during Nagorno-Karabakh war] we had to defend our Motherland. If the time comes again, this time our blow will be final and deadly."
  In this regard, Sargsyan has also assured that in the case of military aggression from Azerbaijan "Armenia will have n
caption: Russian President Vladimir Putin, Ilham Aliyev and Serzh Sargsyan in Sochi, 9 August 2014
exif: {}