ArmInfo."Not only there can, but also must be peace. This is my belief, my position, this is what I believe in. But for this to happen, it is also very important for the international community to be aware of important nuances, to be clear why there isn't progress at a sufficient pace," Armenia's Premier Nikol Pashinyan said in an interview with Euronews.
"The document signed on November 9, 2020 is not a peace treaty or peace deal as you said, in its legal sense. But not so much de jure as de facto, a number of its provisions are grossly violated. I agree with you that it can be and it is a certain concept of future peace architecture.
"But unfortunately, many provisions are regularly violated by Azerbaijan. You see you mentioned Nagorno Karabakh in your question, and everyone understands that. But Azerbaijan continues to claim there is no Nagorno Karabakh, although the November 9 trilateral statement defines the existence of Nagorno Karabakh as an entity, and the President of Azerbaijan signed hat statement. Moreover, he agreed that there is a line of contact in Nagorno Karabakh, and Nagorno Karabakh has a territory that is the defined paragraph 7 of the trilateral statement. Moreover, paragraph 7 of the statement provides that refugees and internally displaces persons shall return to the territory of Nagorno Karabakh and the adjacent districts under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. Unfortunately, to date Azerbaijan has not secured this right. Moreover, they are carrying out constructions in a number of villages that the Armenian population was forced to flee from during the war, and Azerbaijan declares that it will resettle these territories with Azerbaijanis.
"Let alone that until now, contrary to paragraph 8 of the trilateral statement, the prisoners of war, captives, hostages, other detained persons have not been returned. Until recently, there were 33 prisoners, and recently two persons were abducted.
"Now, turning to the Lachin Corridor, which is mentioned in the trilateral statement, to which you referred, and which is signed by the President of Azerbaijan, the purpose of which is to ensure a link between Nagorno Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia, that corridor must be under the control of Russian peacekeepers. By the way, Lachin Corridor, is not just a road, I want to draw your attention, it's 5-km wide space, which is currently illegally blocked by Azerbaijan.
"Let me go back to our penultimate meeting in Brussels, when we agreed, reached an agreement with the President of Azerbaijan in the presence of European Council President Charles Michel, that Armenia and Azerbaijan mutually recognize each other's territorial integrity with 29.800 sq.km in the case of Armenia and 86.600 sq.km in the case of Azerbaijan. After that, Charles Michel made a statement about that, after which when an Armenian journalist asked me about it, I publicly confirmed that fact. Up to this point the President of Azerbaijan has not publicly confirmed that agreement. He has not denied it either, but this is a subtlety that creates a certain lack of trust.
"And we also have an understanding that there should be a dialogue between Baku and Stepanakert, the capital and main city of Nagorno Karabakh, about the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh in the framework of an international mechanism. And this dialogue has not taken place so far either. But we need to follow up for this, we need to work for this, nobody promised that it was going to be easy to reach peace. If it were easy, it would have been long ago been achieved," Mr Pashinyan said.