Azerbaijan is trying to annihilate all Armenians from Nagorno-Karabakh, thus consider the issue closed. If we are wrong, then let Azerbaijan demonstrate concrete interest in discussing the rights and security guarantees of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh – an issue is raised not only by Armenia but also by the entire international community, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Government session.
According to Pashinyan, this is a problem that is put forward not only by Armenia, but also by the international community. “But 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.”
He noted that the fact that Azerbaijan has adopted and is implementing a policy of “Nagorno Karabakh without Armenians” is also substantiated by arbitrary interpretations of the November 9 trilateral declaration. “Among them is, for example, Azerbaijan’s persistent claims that a November 9 trilateral declaration pledged the withdrawal the Defense Army from Nagorno-Karabakh. This is more than an arbitrary comment, because the November 9 declaration clearly states which areas the Armenian units should leave and where they should stay. I should also say that the earlier statements of the President of Azerbaijan testify to the fact that this provision put forward by Azerbaijan is imaginary. During our trilateral meeting mediated by the President of the Russian Federation on November 26, 2021, he himself publicly stated that practically all the provisions of the trilateral declaration of November 9, 2020 have been implemented, except for the point of opening communications. I would like to emphasize that from our point of view, the provision on the return of prisoners of war, hostages and other detainees has obviously not been fully implemented so far, and we are, of course, continuing the work on that. But we must state that the withdrawal of the Defense Army of Nagorno Karabakh means the withdrawal of the Armenians from Nagorno Karabakh, and in fact this is the demand that Azerbaijan is formulating,” Pashinyan said.
Pashinyan noted that this also explains Azerbaijan’s policy of getting rid of everything Armenian from Nagorno Karabakh, including millennia-old churches, khachkars and inscriptions. And the events in Parukh show that the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh need to be protected, otherwise they will become victims of genocide. He noted that in the past, the Armenian side has proposed solutions that would reduce or eliminate such a conflict situation and resolve the issue of the militarized line of contact, the events related to Parukh.
According to Pashinyan, the essenc of the proposal is the following. To record the line of contact in Nagorno Karabakh, to record the obligation of the parties not to cross that line of contact, to remove all military positions along the line, to create a demilitarized zone and to strengthen the implementation of agreements with concrete guarantees. This proposal was not accepted, but the relevance of the guarantees is obvious especially now.
“I must inform that Parukh’s crisis, in fact, arose as a result of violating the agreements. In order to alleviate the tense situation in the region, an agreement had been reached to simultaneously remove a number of positions from the Parukh-Khramort section, and this agreement was to be guaranteed by the Russian peacekeeping contingent. Several Armenian positions were withdrawn, Russian peacekeepers were deployed in the area, but the Azerbaijanis invaded the area of responsibility of the peacekeepers in front of their eyes.
We note with regret that despite the clear statements of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, the United States, France and the United Nations, the invasion of Azerbaijani armed forces into the area of responsibility of the peacekeeping force of the Russian Federation in Nagorno-Karabakh continues.
We expect that the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno-Karabakh will take concrete steps to ensure the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from the area of responsibility of the peacekeepers and to restore the status quo established by the November 9, 2020 trilateral declaration. We also expect that the actions of the peacekeepers during or after the invasion, or the possible inaction, which I mentioned, will be properly investigated,” Pashinyan said.
He recalled that these events, the Azerbaijani armed forces opened fire from mortars on the village of Khramort for 10 days. In a number of villages in Nagorno-Karabakh, Azerbaijanis fired and continue to fire from firearms at residential houses and people carrying out agricultural work, equipment, tractors, and naturaly, the drivers. Such cases were registered in the direction of Nor Shen, Amaras, Taghavart villages, while on October 9, 2021, the driver of a tractor carrying out agricultural work was killed while driving in Martakert by an Azerbaijani sniper in the presence of peacekeepers.
“We record once again. The comparison of the Lachin corridor with the road to be opened through the territory of Armenia is unacceptable, the November 9 declaration does not envisage the existence of any corridor through the territory of Armenia and Armenia has not accepted and will not accept any corridor-related logic,” Pashinyan stressed.
“We are ready to open the road and the railway within the framework of our proposals, to build a road and a railway, but we consider it necessary to sign a de jure agreement with Azerbaijan. Why? Because we see a very specific risk that Armenia will build both the road and the railway, but Azerbaijan will refuse to open the border. And it will mean that neither Armenia, nor Azerbaijan, nor third countries will be unable to use the infrastructure that requires several hundred million dollars of investment, and Armenia will simply lose several hundred million dollars. What do we offer today? We propose the de-jure record the agreements reached in Brussels on December 14, 2021on the relaunching of the railway, agree on the parameters of the railway and start the construction. Or we can do it in a package, including the highway, and we are ready to do this as soon as Azerbaijan responds positively to our proposals. By the way, we have also delivered our written proposals to a number of our international partners, for whom our proposals are logical, acceptable, and address the interests of all the countries in the region.”
