Friday, March 3 2023 21:03

ArmInfo. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan delivered a speech today as part of his working visit to Germany,  addressing the members of the Bundestag's Foreign Relations Committee, presenting the situation in the region to them.

According to the Prime Minister, a new factor has been added to  Armenia's relations with the EU,, and this factor is the EU  monitoring mission along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.  He thanked  the EU for taking this decision, which was the result of a four-sided  meeting in Prague, when a short-term mission arrived in Armenia.  After that, Armenia applied for a long-term mission and is grateful  to the EU for this decision.

As Pashinyan emphasized, in general, the situation remains tense,  primarily due to the ongoing blocking of the Lachin corridor by  Azerbaijan. <Unfortunately, despite the decision of the International  Court of Justice, Azerbaijan has not yet opened the Lachin corridor.  I want to draw your attention to the fact that this decision has  legal force and I think that this situation should be discussed at  the international level, because it is unacceptable to leave the  decision of the International Court of Justice without a reaction, in  particular, when the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno-Karabakh  continues and needs international reaction>, noted the prime  minister. As Pashinyan noted, the Lachin corridor has been closed for  more than 80 days, and all this time Azerbaijan has insisted that the  corridor is not closed, but open.  Therefore, the decision of the  International Court of Justice is very important for clarifying this  issue, because the court stated that the Lacin corridor is closed and  must be opened.

<During my visit, I heard some opinions that support the idea of  sending an international monitoring or fact-finding mission to  Nagorno-Karabakh and the Lachin corridor to observe the humanitarian  situation and observe what is happening there, as this crisis may  have irreversible consequences, could turn into a humanitarian  disaster. I think we should work together to keep the situation from  getting out of hand>, he stressed.

But according to the prime minister, the most important issue is why  Azerbaijan is doing this, blocking the corridor.  <We are sure that  the goal of Azerbaijan is to carry out ethnic cleansing in  Nagorno-Karabakh and the expulsion of Armenians from  Nagorno-Karabakh. I think the last statement of Azerbaijani President  Aliyev proves this, because Aliyev said that the Lachin corridor is  open to Armenians who want to leave Karabakh, which I think  automatically means that the Lachin corridor is closed to Armenians  who want to stay in Nagorno-Karabakh and who wants to live there.  This is the root cause of Azerbaijan's actions. There are fears that  this is only the beginning of an escalation in Nagorno-Karabakh,  possibly along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, because Azerbaijan  continues to express aggressive thoughts, aggressive rhetoric>, he  said.

In this context, Pashinyan informed that in September last year,  Azerbaijan initiated a large-scale aggression against Armenia,  occupying the sovereign territories of Armenia. "But, on the other  hand, we reached an agreement in Prague, according to which Armenia  and Azerbaijan recognize each other's territorial integrity and  sovereignty on the basis of the 1991 Alma-Ata agreement. And this  means that the administrative boundaries of the Soviet republics are  turning into state boundaries. The Almaty Statement was about the  collapse of the Soviet Union and the formation of the Commonwealth of  Independent States. 13 former Soviet republics agreed that  administrative borders become state borders>, Pashinyan said, noting  that it was in this vein that agreements were reached in Prague that  the process of delimiting the border between Armenia and Azerbaijan  would be based on the same Almaty agreement.

As the Prime Minister noted, the surprise was that after that the  President of Azerbaijan stated that the delimitation should be  carried out on the basis of historical maps. <You know, it's very  hard to explain what that means. Perhaps the new initiative of the  President of Azerbaijan will be able to clarify this situation,  because we recently witnessed the presentation of the so-called  "Western Azerbaijan" initiative, and the whole idea of this  initiative is that the entire territory of the Republic of Armenia  belongs to Azerbaijan, and the capital of Armenia is an Azerbaijani  city, and etc.  Our assessment is that all this, the blocking of the  Lachin corridor, the so-called "Western Azerbaijan" initiative, is a  preparation for a large-scale aggression against Armenia," Pashinyan  emphasized.

He drew the attention of the Bundestag members to another very  important situation. <Yesterday we had a discussion in the German  Foreign Affairs Council, a and some of our colleagues there used the  so-called "Zangezur Corridor" phrase. I asked our colleagues to be  careful, because sometimes the same phrase can have different  meanings in different regions and in different political and  geopolitical circumstances. Usually in Europe, a corridor means  routes that provide better transport services, etc. But our situation  is such that we have a legally agreed point along the corridor in the  tripartite statement of November 9, 2020, which put an end to the war  in Nagorno-Karabakh.

So we only have one point of view about the corridor, and that is the  Lachin corridor, which is currently blocked. The Lachin corridor was  formed to establish a connection between Armenia and  Nagorno-Karabakh. The Lachin corridor is not a direct road, it is a 5  km wide security zone, and according to the relevant clause of the  tripartite statement, the Lachin corridor should be outside the  control of Azerbaijan and be under the control of Russian  peacekeepers. In the same statement, we have point 9, which concerns  the opening of all transport and economic routes in the region. And  yes, there is a clause that Armenia must provide a connection between  the western regions of Azerbaijan and the Nakhichevan Autonomous  Republic, but it makes no sense for these routes to be outside the  control of Armenia. This route should work in the context of the  opening of roads and railways throughout our region," Pashinyan said.

He noted that Armenia is ready to open all communications today. "But  every time we try to do so, Azerbaijan says that these routes should  not be under the control and jurisdiction of Armenia, which is  completely unacceptable for us.  Recently, the President of  Azerbaijan publicly admitted that there is no point in a tripartite  statement on the so-called "Zangezur corridor", and it was he who  introduced such a concept into the context of regional relations. The  problem is that it is impossible to unilaterally contribute something  to a tripartite statement. This is absolutely absurd. Thus, I would  like this phrase not to be used, because it would mean supporting  Azerbaijan's territorial ambitions against Armenia. But, on the other  hand, I once again confirm that we are ready to open regional  communications>, Pashinyan emphasized.

ЏаҐ¤бв ўЁў ⥬ б ¬л¬ ®Ўйго ®жҐ­Єг бЁвг жЁЁ, Џ иЁ­п­ ®вўҐвЁ« ­  ап¤  ў®Їа®б®ў ¤ҐЇгв в®ў Ѓг­¤Ґбв Ј . -0- "Moreover, for more than six  months we have had a draft government decision to open three  checkpoints on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, but every time we try  to make this decision, the Azerbaijani side raises a lot of noise,  saying why they want to open a checkpoint at our borders without our  consent. This is a general situation, but I think we should focus on  the peace agenda. As you know, our government has taken  responsibility for the peace agenda, I am personally committed to the  peace agenda and democracy, because I believe that democracy and  peace go hand in hand, and since democracy is a strategy for us, we  are interested in peace so that we can have peace in our country to  ensure the continuous development of democracy, economy and freedom>,  the Prime Minister of Armenia summed up.

Thus, presenting a general assessment of the situation, Pashinyan  answered a number of questions from the Bundestag MPs.