There are people who accuse us of recognizing Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan. Has any government of Armenia recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan? And which authority recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan? Yes, RA recognized Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan and this was done by Vardan Oskanyan. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said this during a question-and-answer session with the Government in the National Assembly.
It should be noted that earlier in the National Assembly a question was asked to the Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan regarding the article written by the former Minister of Foreign Affairs Vardan Oskanyan.

"From the moment when Armenia accepted the Madrid principles as a basis for negotiations, it recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan," Pashinyan continued.

He mentioned that he made a one-hour speech on that topic in the National Assembly, but there was no substantive response to that speech.

"There is no need to make hysterical statements now. Moreover, it was Vardan Oskanyan who publicly recognized RA as an occupier and RA could not overcome these two actions of Vardan Oskanyan and his leader. Yes, he has not been able to overcome it until today. We must admit that we may never be able to overcome these statements. We are now trying to manage the consequences of that statement because at that time it was not Vardan Oskanyan and Robert Kocharyan who recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, but the republic of Armenia. And it happened in 2007 as a part of the combination of power transfer in 2007-2008. Serzh Sargsyan and Edward Nalbandyan also recognized Armenia as part of Azerbaijan," Pashinyan said.

The deputies corrected Pashinyan, noting that the prime minister should have pronounced the word Karabakh. "Karabakh was recognized as part of Azerbaijan. It may not be a slip of the tongue, there are other depths. If I heard what I said correctly," said Pashinyan, responding to the deputies.

Pashinyan repeated that it was Robert Kocharyan who recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, leaving Nagorno-Karabakh out of the 1998 negotiation process and ratifying the OSCE Istanbul Security Charter in November 1999. "Now, have we fought against those decisions so that we can reverse those decisions?" The decisions I mentioned. Yes, we fought and you all saw how we fought. Did we succeed? No, we did not succeed. It's time to admit that we probably won't succeed."

Photo by Photolure