Foreign Minister Eduard Nalbandian

YEREVAN—Official Yerevan in not troubled by a recent vote granting Azerbaijan a non-permanent seat on the United States Security Council, said Foreign Minister Nalbandian while answering questions at the National Assembly Thursday. He said Armenian will continue its policy on the Karabakh conflict resolution process without “nervous convulsions.”

According to an official read out of the minister’s Q&A session at parliament, Nalbandian also said the leaders of the co-chairing countries of the OSCE Minsk Group—France, Russia and the US—who are permanent members of the UN Security Council have ruled out any UN involvement in the Karabakh peace process.

He pointed to three consecutive announcements, the latest of which came after the Kazan, Russia meeting in June, where presidents Barack Obama, Nicolas Sarkozy and Dmitry Medvedev reiterated that the Karabakh peace process could only be resolved under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Nalbandian was referring to statements emanating from Baku that now that Azerbaijan hold a seat on the Security Council the aim is to move the Karabakh peace process to the United Nations.

“I think there is concrete response given to this and there is no need to get emotional over statements coming from Azerbaijan,” said Nalbandian.

Citing announcements from the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmen regarding the current state of the Karabakh peace process, Nalbandian said that Azerbaijan has backed itself into a corner given the statements by the international community, which correlate with the policies of Armenia.

Not all lawmakers agreed with this approach. Armen Rustamian, chairman of the Parliament’s standing committee of foreign affairs and a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation parliamentary bloc, rejected Nalbandian’s arguments.

“I absolutely don’t share the view that we must not react emotionally to Azerbaijan becoming a non-permanent member of the Security Council,” Rusamian told journalists, as reported by RFE/RL. “That is not an adequate response to the situation.”