Armenia will have to make compromises with Azerbaijan for resolving the Armenia-Azerbaijan Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, US Ambassador Richard Mills said in an interview with the Armenian website EVN Report.

Although the diplomat is hoping that the transition in Armenia will generate more discussion on what Armenia’s options are and what Armenia is prepared to accept, Mills says he is been struck by how little discussion there was in Armenia about what would have been or is an acceptable solution and compromise.

Mills said that he was surprised when he first got there and found out that most Armenians he met adamantly opposed returning the occupied territories as part of a negotiation settlement.

He noted that return of land was one of the core principles of the Madrid Principles.

The reality is that any settlement is going to require the return of some portion of the occupied territories, he added.

In 1997-1998, then President of Armenia Levon Ter-Petrosyan proposed a plan to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, implying the demilitarization of the occupied territories and the return of a number of settlements to Azerbaijan.

As a result, Prime Minister Robert Kocharyan, Minister of Internal Affairs and National Security Serzh Sargsyan and Minister of Defense Vazgen Sargsyan, dissatisfied with such a plan, actually forced him to resign before the completion of his term of office - February 3, 1998.

This led to 20 years of the Karabakh clan rule in Yerevan, which showed no intention to compromise and was incapable of conducting constructive negotiations.