Tuesday, June 27 2023 15:10

ArmInfo. Shushi's defensive success  could be a turning point in the 44- day war. Prime Minister Nikol  Pashinyan stated on June 27 at a meeting of the Inquiry Committee for  Studying the Circumstances of the Hostilities Unleashed on September  27, 2020 ( 44-day war), answering the question of Hayk Sargsyan, MP  from the "Civil Contract", why Azerbaijan agreed to cease hostilities  on November 9, and not in October, at <more favorable conditions>.

"Sushi had a significant role in this, because the symbol of this  war, in my understanding, was Sushi," said the Prime Minister, while  admitting that this is a value judgment.

He pointed to the importance of Shushi both from a symbolic and  strategic point of view. "After all, Shushi is located along the  Lachin corridor, "hanging" over Stepanakert," he said.

According to him, the war, in the logic of Baku, could not be stopped  until Shushi was taken. " Shushi's defensive success could be a  turning point in the war, no matter how difficult the situation was,"  he said.

the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, announced the capture of  the city of Shushi by Azerbaijani troops on November 8. Late in the  evening of November 9, it became known that Russian President  Vladimir Putin, his Azerbaijani counterpart Aliyev and Armenian Prime  Minister Nikol Pashinyan adopted a tripartite statement, according to  which, from 00:00 (Moscow time) on November 10, a complete ceasefire  and cessation of all military operations in Nagorno-Karabakh were  announced. 

On November 16, 2020, Pashinyan stated that the war could have been  avoided if the Armenian side had agreed to return 7 regions to  Azerbaijan, including Shushi, but this did not correspond to the  policy that the authorities of Karabakh and Armenia wanted to  implement. He stressed that the issue of surrendering Shushi was put  forward by Azerbaijan from the very beginning of the negotiations,  even before the start of hostilities, but since there was even a  theoretical possibility of its defense, the Artsakh Defense Army  decided to figh to the end. In response, Anna Naghdalyan, the former  spokesperson of the RA MFA, stated on her Facebook page that there  was no issue of Shushi's handover at any stage of the peace  negotiation process.