Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan recalled the statement of the Armenian Security Council from March 28 at today’s government session․ “The statement, issued following the discussions in expanded format, emphasizes the aspiration of Azerbaijan to launch new provocations and attacks in the direction of Nagorno-Karabakh. We underlined that there is quite a high probability of such developments on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border as well. This statement, naturally, raised additional questions and I want to come up with a number of clarifications and justifications to make the situation in the region clearer for both the Armenian and the international community.”
Pashinyan said that like before, during and after the 44-day war in 2020, Azerbaijan pursues a policy of formatulating the wording for justifying the military attack on Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh.
“They first bring forward theses, proposals or comments on the diplomatic and public platform, then accuse Armenia of not responding to those theses, proposals or comments or reacting in an unconstructive way or rejecting them, then attributes some promises to Armenia, fabricates some types of arrangements. Then, in the context of this discourse, they attribute to Armenia none-constructiveness, denial, the practice of not fulfilling promises, not adhering to the agreements, and build aggressive rhetoric based on this accusation, followed by aggressive actions, which are justified by the discourse and content already described above,” Pashinyan said adding that Azerbaijan is trying to legitimize a large-scale attack on Nagorno-Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia.
“In the above context, by the way, sometimes dissinformation plays a significant role, as it is now commonly said, fake news. Now, for example, the false information circulated by Azerbaijani sources is widely spread in the Western world, as if Armenia has provided 4 of its Su-30SM multifunctional jets to Russia for use in Ukraine. This, of course, is outrageous disinformation and our SUs have never left the borders of our country since the day they were imported to Armenia. In the same way, the false news that terrorists are being transferred to Ukraine through the territory of Armenia is presented as truth. Every more or less informed one knows that Armenia, which suffered from the involvement of mercenary-terrorists in the war against it two years ago, can never contribute to their involvement in other places, this is completely absurd information,” Pashinyan said.
According to Pashinyan the most speculated issue by Azerbaijan aimed at provoking regional escalation is probably the topic of the peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan. “Azerbaijan continues to claim that the Republic of Armenia leaves the issue unanswered. However, this information does not correspond to reality at all, because I have repeatedly publicly expressed the readiness of the Republic of Armenia to sign a peace agreement with Azerbaijan. And this behaviour has reached the point when Azerbaijan is continuesly announcing that it has conveyed a 5-provision proposal to Armenia, and we have allegedly left those proposals unanswered.”
Pashinyan recalled that at the previous Cabinet meeting, in a live broadcast, he addressed this issue in detail and stated that on March 10, a 5-provision proposal was submitted to the Republic of Armenia, and on March 14, that is, four days later, two of which were non-working. “It was conveyed to us by one of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries, we delivered the response through the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries. We have also publicly stated that there is nothing unacceptable for us in Azerbaijan’s proposals. The Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia stated on March 21, 2022. TheRepublic of Armenia responded to the 5-provision proposal of Azerbaijan through both public and diplomatic channels. This answer means that the principle of mutual recognition of territorial integrity and inviolability of borders is acceptable for Armenia. So the question is, why does Azerbaijan consider this reaction as an absence of response?”
“The reason is that the Republic of Armenia has stated in its public and diplomatic responses that there is a Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the issue of the rights of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh should be addressed in the context of the Armenia-Azerbaijan comprehensive settlement. Azerbaijan’s position is that there is no Nagorno-Karabakh issue, it is already solved. However, this position of Baku does not answer one important question: and how the issue of the rights of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh be solved in that case? There is no answer to this question and this is the reason why the international community is constantly speaking about the need for a comprehensive settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, expressed at various international platforms. Realizing that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue exists and will be better expressed on the international agenda, Azerbaijan is not trying to solve the issue, but just to close it, and this operation was launched from the village of Parukh in the Askeran region, which has an obvious tendency to continue. In essence, Azerbaijan is trying to annihilate all Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, thus consider the issue closed,” Pashinyan said.
He noted that official Baku is moving in the opposite direction, claiming that there is no Nagorno-Karabakh. “This is also the reason why the official circles of Azerbaijan react quite aggressively to all the cases when the international community uses the name Nagorno-Karabakh. However, the use of this name is unequivocally legitimate, logical, because, among other reasons, the trilateral declaration of November 9 clearly states the terms Nagorno-Karabakh, Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. That declaration is also signed by the President of Azerbaijan,” Pashinyan said.
