Minister Nikol Pashinyan, during a meeting with members of the Armenian community of Vienna, described  his talks earlier today with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev as “positive” even though there was no breakthrough in the Karabakh negotiations process.

“What’s important is that a process has begun that provides the opportunity to speak about our agendas, perceptions, about problems, and to talk about the process that I had the chance to announce in Stepanakert and during my subsequent press conference,” Pashinyan said according to an Armenian government statement.

Pashinyan expressed the hope that Aliyev would also assess the meeting as positive.

“Let me note a nuance here. When I say the meeting was positive, this doesn’t mean that there was a winner and a loser,” Pashinyan said, noting it was the same for the talks in Dushanbe, Saint Petersburg and Davos.

The Armenian Prime Minister said the Karabakh issue has deep roots and is complex, but that a discussion has begun where the sides have presented their perceptions on the matter.

“It’s a very deep and serious problem, and I believe it’s important to have a setting in which we can voice our thoughts, to be able to talk, and to understand that there’s nothing wrong in talking,” Pashinyan said.

He then asked whether the sides could take steps, to start a discussion, to stabilize the situation t along the Line of Contact so that people in the villages could lead normal lives without fear and the risk of being shot by snipers.

“There are citizens on both sides. Can’t we try to organize meetings of the families, so that these people can have contact with their family members?”

Pashinyan said that while both sides have entrenched positions, it should be possible to evaluate the opponent’s position to see what is logical or not.