Armenian President Armen Sarkissian today met with several residents of the Hadrut region of Artsakh who fled the war and now reside in Armenia.

"We all have pain, but it is incomparable to what you, your families and relatives live through," said Sarkissian, adding that he has no other words to lessen their pain.

Sarkissian, according to a statement released by his office, said that it is essential that Armenians unite as a nation and a state.

“To blame each other, to argue, will take us nowhere but to greater misfortune. Let's try to stand up and help each other,” Sarkissian told the refugees who now have to decide whether to risk moving back to their homes in an area under Azerbaijani control.

The people of Hadrut said that they had recently turned to international organizations and embassies with their concerns and disagreements over what had happened.

They told President Sarkissian that they’ve summarized their demands into the following main points - examine the issue of de-occupation of Hadrut; make every effort to include the issue of Hadrut all other related issues in the negotiating agenda of the OSCE Minsk Group; raise the issue of IDPs from Hadrut to the legal level; and  raise the issue of preserving the historical and cultural monuments of Hadrut.

Noting that he had nothing to do with the ceasefire document, President Sarkissian confessed that he feels slighted that his diplomatic and negotiating experience had not been used.

Sarkissian said that today one of the first steps should be to "return the Karabakh issue to the negotiation stage - the OSCE Minsk Group.

“Ultimately, the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh will be determined by the OSCE Minsk Group. We must invest all our potential, both political and diplomatic, to return the issue to the purview of the Minsk Group. This may be the mechanism that should work for the preservation of historical and cultural heritage,” he said.

Sarkissian told the Hadrut residents that they must continue to voice their concerns in an organized fashion and on a legal basis, adding that he will stand by them in this fight.