Pashinyan: the policy of peace is not a policy of defeat

YEREVAN, April 29. /ARKA/. The policy of peace is not a policy of defeat, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told today a joint session of the Security Councils of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh).

"The policy of peace is not a policy of defeat at all, but a policy of overcoming the scourge of war and the difficulties that followed it; it is an agenda of guaranteeing the security, rights and future of the people of Artsakh," he said.

Pashinyan said that he sees the way, the sequence of steps that should lead to guaranteeing the security and rights of the peoples of Armenia and Artsakh.

"A very important principle is that the Artsakh people should live in Artsakh, consider themselves Armenians, and this is the agenda that we should promote together," he said.

The prime minister also noted that the first beneficiary of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement is Artsakh and the people of Artsakh.

"We are always in direct communication with the president of Artsakh, our other colleagues are working together with our colleagues from Artsakh," he said.

Pashinyan also noted that a large layer of joint work concerns socio-economic issues. "It is fundamentally important that we do everything to ensure that people live in Artsakh, feel safe. It is also about the residents of Armenia, of course, and I am confident that we are moving in the right direction," he said.

Earlier, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in the Parliament that the international community was pressing Armenia to lower the bar on the issue of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, otherwise it will not be able to help the Armenian side. The statement sparked a wave of criticism both in Armenia and Artsakh. -0-