Armenian prime minister says why he had to sign statement on stopping war in Karabakh
29.11.2020,
17:16
In a Facebok live broadcast today Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan once again spoke about why he had to sign a statement on November 9 with the leaders of Russia and Azerbaijan to stop the war in Nagorno-Karabakh and the possible consequences of that step.
YEREVAN, November 29. /ARKA/. In a Facebok live broadcast today Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan once again spoke about why he had to sign a statement on November 9 with the leaders of Russia and Azerbaijan to stop the war in Nagorno-Karabakh and the possible consequences of that step.
According to Pashinyan, Armenia's previous leader had said earlier publicly that after the 2011 negotiations with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev in Russian Kazan, Armenia was ready to hand over all seven Azerbaijani districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh's administrative borders that fell under Armenian control in 1994 in return for an intermediate status for Karabakh and a later referendum on its status, but Aliyev did not agree and put forward new demands. Pashinyan said there is a video available on Internet that confirms this.
Azerbaijan's demands and escalation of tension
What kind of new demands Azerbaijan could have put forward? According to Pashinyan, it could have demanded that the status of Karabakh were removed from the agenda, or that the Lachin corridor did not have a special status. The Azerbaijani demands had no mention of the town of Shushi, because it was also to be resolved by the Madrid Principles adopted by the Armenian side in 2007 as a basis for negotiations: they clearly state that the ratio of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh must correspond to what it was back in 1988 before the conflict. In other words, Shushi was to have a 90% Azerbaijani population. Since 2013, Azerbaijan has resorted to military escalations, which reached the peak in 2013-2015, translating to the four-day war in April 2016.
According to Pashinyan, regardless of the document presented by the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group at the negotiating table, Azerbaijan insisted on the aforementioned demands, the alternative to which was war.
No alternative to war
'I stated that when I took office as Prime Minister of Armenia in 2018. And in this situation, let's figure out what was the alternative to what has happened? One could have appealed to the people and say: "Either we must hand over the seven districts without a status for Karabakh, or there would be a war." People would not have agreed and would decide to fight. A war would have started and it would appear that Armenia started it. If I said “no,” I would have to surrender the districts, people would say “Nikol is traitor” and the war would start again,' Pashinyan said.
'If at any stage, including during the latest Turkish -Azerbaijani military exercises, I would have told the Turks to resolve the issue without war, they would have demanded that I demonstrate a specific schedule for the surrender of the regions. If I had done so, the people would have called me traitor again.'
'As of 2018, the Karabakh issue was at an impasse with one way out - the unconditional surrender of the districts without guarantees that Azerbaijan would not put forward new demands. And, in the context of these new demands, a new rise in the likelihood of war.
Working with partners
'Now there is a lot of talk that we needed to work more closely with our partners. And who said that the partners had a different vision of the conflict settlement? Is it not obvious now that their vision did not coincide with our one? We prepared for the war as much as possible and now it turns out that we had not prepared well. The July battles on Armenian-Azerbaijani border showed that we were at least well prepared for the fight against Azerbaijan. But not against Turkey and mercenaries. If the war were quickly stopped, the price would have been the same: the surrender of seven districts.?
What to do now?
'Now we must, by clenching our teeth, stabilize the situation, not aggravate it. The most important issue is the issue of prisoners of war, missing and possibly hiding citizens, which must be resolved very quickly.
If we look from the other side, our adversary sees that dragging out this issue deepens the confrontation inside Armenia. Under these conditions, will Azerbaijan speed up the solution of the issue of prisoners of war and missing? Of course not. On the contrary, they will drag it out as long as possible, expecting new disasters in our country.
Fight in the name of...
'You can ask a very correct question: must we fight? My answer yes.. Let us definitely fight, let us fight harder, but not against each other, but together. In the name of resolving the challenges that can be accelerated only in one case: if everyone understands that there will be no internal clashes over this. Who is to blame for what has happened should be clarified and implemented. But now we need to concentrate on solving the problems together, and not on fighting each other. I am sure about that.'
From September 27 to November 9, Azerbaijani armed forces, backed by Turkey and foreign mercenaries and terrorists, attacked Nagorno-Karabakh along the entire front line using rocket and artillery weapons, heavy armored vehicles, military aircraft and prohibited types of weapons such as cluster bombs and phosphorus weapons.
On November 9, the leaders of the Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a statement on the cessation of all hostilities in Artsakh. According to the document, the parties stopped at where they were at that time. The town of Shushi, the districts of Agdam, Kelbajar and Lachin are handed over to Azerbaijan, with the exception of a 5-kilometer corridor connecting Karabakh with Armenia.
A Russian peacekeeping contingent has been deployed along the contact line in Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor. Internally displaced persons and refugees are returning to Karabakh and adjacent regions, prisoners of war, hostages and other detained persons and bodies of the dead are being exchanged..--0-
According to Pashinyan, Armenia's previous leader had said earlier publicly that after the 2011 negotiations with Azerbaijani president Ilham Aliyev in Russian Kazan, Armenia was ready to hand over all seven Azerbaijani districts surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh's administrative borders that fell under Armenian control in 1994 in return for an intermediate status for Karabakh and a later referendum on its status, but Aliyev did not agree and put forward new demands. Pashinyan said there is a video available on Internet that confirms this.
Azerbaijan's demands and escalation of tension
What kind of new demands Azerbaijan could have put forward? According to Pashinyan, it could have demanded that the status of Karabakh were removed from the agenda, or that the Lachin corridor did not have a special status. The Azerbaijani demands had no mention of the town of Shushi, because it was also to be resolved by the Madrid Principles adopted by the Armenian side in 2007 as a basis for negotiations: they clearly state that the ratio of the population of Nagorno-Karabakh must correspond to what it was back in 1988 before the conflict. In other words, Shushi was to have a 90% Azerbaijani population. Since 2013, Azerbaijan has resorted to military escalations, which reached the peak in 2013-2015, translating to the four-day war in April 2016.
According to Pashinyan, regardless of the document presented by the co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group at the negotiating table, Azerbaijan insisted on the aforementioned demands, the alternative to which was war.
No alternative to war
'I stated that when I took office as Prime Minister of Armenia in 2018. And in this situation, let's figure out what was the alternative to what has happened? One could have appealed to the people and say: "Either we must hand over the seven districts without a status for Karabakh, or there would be a war." People would not have agreed and would decide to fight. A war would have started and it would appear that Armenia started it. If I said “no,” I would have to surrender the districts, people would say “Nikol is traitor” and the war would start again,' Pashinyan said.
'If at any stage, including during the latest Turkish -Azerbaijani military exercises, I would have told the Turks to resolve the issue without war, they would have demanded that I demonstrate a specific schedule for the surrender of the regions. If I had done so, the people would have called me traitor again.'
'As of 2018, the Karabakh issue was at an impasse with one way out - the unconditional surrender of the districts without guarantees that Azerbaijan would not put forward new demands. And, in the context of these new demands, a new rise in the likelihood of war.
Working with partners
'Now there is a lot of talk that we needed to work more closely with our partners. And who said that the partners had a different vision of the conflict settlement? Is it not obvious now that their vision did not coincide with our one? We prepared for the war as much as possible and now it turns out that we had not prepared well. The July battles on Armenian-Azerbaijani border showed that we were at least well prepared for the fight against Azerbaijan. But not against Turkey and mercenaries. If the war were quickly stopped, the price would have been the same: the surrender of seven districts.?
What to do now?
'Now we must, by clenching our teeth, stabilize the situation, not aggravate it. The most important issue is the issue of prisoners of war, missing and possibly hiding citizens, which must be resolved very quickly.
If we look from the other side, our adversary sees that dragging out this issue deepens the confrontation inside Armenia. Under these conditions, will Azerbaijan speed up the solution of the issue of prisoners of war and missing? Of course not. On the contrary, they will drag it out as long as possible, expecting new disasters in our country.
Fight in the name of...
'You can ask a very correct question: must we fight? My answer yes.. Let us definitely fight, let us fight harder, but not against each other, but together. In the name of resolving the challenges that can be accelerated only in one case: if everyone understands that there will be no internal clashes over this. Who is to blame for what has happened should be clarified and implemented. But now we need to concentrate on solving the problems together, and not on fighting each other. I am sure about that.'
From September 27 to November 9, Azerbaijani armed forces, backed by Turkey and foreign mercenaries and terrorists, attacked Nagorno-Karabakh along the entire front line using rocket and artillery weapons, heavy armored vehicles, military aircraft and prohibited types of weapons such as cluster bombs and phosphorus weapons.
On November 9, the leaders of the Russia, Azerbaijan and Armenia signed a statement on the cessation of all hostilities in Artsakh. According to the document, the parties stopped at where they were at that time. The town of Shushi, the districts of Agdam, Kelbajar and Lachin are handed over to Azerbaijan, with the exception of a 5-kilometer corridor connecting Karabakh with Armenia.
A Russian peacekeeping contingent has been deployed along the contact line in Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor. Internally displaced persons and refugees are returning to Karabakh and adjacent regions, prisoners of war, hostages and other detained persons and bodies of the dead are being exchanged..--0-
