An international conference Artsakh Liberation Struggle: From Gulistan Till Our Days kicked off in Stepanakert.

The event, held in the framework of the Karabakh national liberation struggle 25th anniversary hosted acclaimed scientists from Arsakh, Armenia, Russia, France, Germany, Great Britain, Austria, Belgium, Greece, Cyprus, Lebanon among other countries.

As Karabakh President Bako Sahakyan stated in his address, the Armenian nation’s aspiration for an independent life and the restoration of national statehood is one of the lengthiest national liberation movements in world’s history, with regaining sovereign and powerful national statehood, ensuring its continuous development as an inalterable supreme strategic goal.

Dwelling on the current stage of state building, the President noted that there’s no return to the past, with Artsakh’s independence and safety not to be to be bargained.

A human rights barrister, top QC Geoffrey Robertson, in turn, noted that the international legislation is developing a clause stipulating for bypassing of the territorial integrity principle where a crime against humanity was perpetrated.

As he noted, the international law provides a right for secession when the nation’s fundamental rights are violated. “It’s time to recognize Nagorno Karabakh as an independent state,” he stressed.

According to the Artsakh Foreign Minister’s adviser Arsen Melik-Shahnazarov, in Soviet period, the communist historiography falsified the role of the Gulistan Treaty in the history of the Armenian nation – as an importan stage on the way to liberation of the Eastern Armenia from colonial rule of Persia. It was this treaty that stipulated for the transfer of a number of Armenian territories from Persia to Russia, which had a clearly positive effect in preservation of the people’s safety as well as their political and economic development.