Settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict will require painful compromises from Armenia and Azerbaijan, Armenian Defense Minister and Security Council Secretary Serzhik Sarkisian said on Wednesday. \"I am absolutely sure that the settlement of the Karabakh crisis will be painful for the Armenian as well as for the Azerbaijani people,\" Sarkisian said at parliament hearings devoted to the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. \"A compromise presumes concessions, and nobody can make concessions without difficulties,\" he said. If Armenia receives security guarantees for Nagorno-Karabakh, the existing security area around Nagorno-Karabakh [seven Azerbaijani regions under control of the Karabakh side] \"will lose its meaning,\" he said. The handing over of those territories to Azerbaijan is not yet on the agenda, Sarkisian said. \"We just have to be ready to hold negotiations on the security area,\" he said. (Interfax)