Key differences concern Nagorno-Karabakh, but that's not all - Nikol Pashinyan

YEREVAN, May 5. /ARKA/. The key disagreements in the Washington talks between the foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan concern Nagorno-Karabakh, but that is not all, Armenian Prime Minister Pashinyan said in an interview with the Armenian language service of the RL/RFE in Prague.

Pashinyan, who was on a two-day official visit to Prague, stressed that there are differences over the rights of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, and they persist.

Pashinyan's interview comes after four-day talks in Washington between Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijan counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov, facilitated by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken.

In a joint statement issued by the parties after the talks Mirzoyan and Bayramov said they 'made progress in mutual understanding on some articles of the draft bilateral Agreement on Peace and Establishment of Interstate Relations', but noted that positions on a number of key issues remain different.

According to Pashinyan, despite agreements reached by the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan at their meetings in Prague and Sochi in October last year that both countries recognize each other's territorial integrity, the sides are still unable to reach agreement in the draft peace agreement on the wording that will give the Armenian side confidence that Azerbaijan recognizes 29,800 square kilometers of Armenia within its Soviet-era borders.

"Any agreement, even the most explicitly written, has differentt interpretations, and how they should be resolved is a very important question after all, it is a question of ensuring peace after the signing of a peace agreement. Both international and local mechanisms are taken into account, especially concerning the withdrawal of troops… As for the rights of Armenians in Nagorno-Karabakh, there are interpretations, and they have been persisting. Of course, certain progress has been made. If before (the Washington talk) the difference between the positions of the parties was 1 km long, now it is 990 meters, it is progress, but the difference is still huge," said the Prime Minister.

Pashinyan said: "Armenia is working on an option that the security and rights of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh be discussed through Baku-Stepanakert dialogue, which should have some international participation, otherwise this topic and the agenda can be simply ignored by Azerbaijan.

At the same time, the Armenian premier claimed that the discussion launched in Washington can be continued in Moscow, refuting allegation that there are different Western and Russian projects.

Pashinyan added that the West proposed approaches, but not a written version

"The approach was verbal and if we write it down, read it on paper, it may turn out that we got it wrong. In August 2020, the Russian side submitted a written proposal, we accepted it, but Azerbaijan rejected it. We have not seen Russia to offer that option again," said the Prime Minister.

Asked if there was such an attempt in Sochi, Pashinyan said Moscow had never made such an attempt.

"The moment this (proposal) is put on the table, we are ready to move forward with it. But the question is to what extent will the Russian Federation adhere to that option?" Pashinyan said. --0—