Gentleman`s agreement on determination of Karabakh`s status reached  along with trilateral statement - .  Mikhail Galuzin

ArmInfo.The Russian side has always been and remains committed to the alliance and strategic  partnership with Armenia, to the agreements that exist. Mikhail Galuzin, Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Russia, who oversees relations with the CIS countries, stated this in an interview with RBC, referring to tensions in relations between Yerevan and Moscow.

"We proceed from the need to preserve and strengthen those  centuries-old close ties between the Russian and Armenian peoples,  which have given both peoples and both countries a lot for their  development. And it is all the more unpleasant to see steps from  official Yerevan, which, in our opinion, are clearly due to opposite  logic than the one I tried to present to you. There is an escalation  of anti-Russian rhetoric in the statements of Armenian officials, the  escalation of an unfriendly information campaign in the Armenian  media space. All this is based on an absolutely untenable narrative  that Russia did not help Armenia, that Russia did not protect the  Armenian population of Nagorno-Karabakh," he said.

According to him, this is propaganda rhetoric lying on the surface,  but one must see the underlying reasons and origins of the events  that occurred on September 19-20. In this vein, he recalled that on  November 9, 2020, the leaders signed a tripartite statement that  determined the modalities of the movement towards a peaceful  settlement between Azerbaijan and Armenia and approaches, including  to resolving the Nagorno- Karabakh problem.

"And along with those normalization tracks that I mentioned above,  there was also a gentleman's agreement that the status of Karabakh  would be determined in the future. Everyone proceeded from this.  But  almost a year ago, significant changes took place in this picture. In  October 2022 At the Armenia- Azerbaijan summit under the auspices of  the European Union, Nikol Pashinyan recognized the territorial  integrity of Azerbaijan and the belonging of Nagorno-Karabakh to  Azerbaijan.

The validity of the Alma-Ata Declaration of December 1991, which  defined the border between the new independent states that emerged  after the collapse of the Soviet Union within the borders between the  republics of the USSR, was confirmed," he said.

Galuzin once again emphasized that the Armenian leadership recognized  Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan and confirmed this recognition  in May 2023 at the next similar Armenia-Azerbaijan-EU event.

"And this radically changed the conditions under which the joint  statement of November 2020 was signed, and the situation around the  Russian peacekeeping contingent. This was a 180-degree turn in the  position of official Yerevan. Because the current leadership of  Armenia, upon coming to power several years ago, officially stated  that Artsakh, as they call Karabakh, is Armenia," the diplomat  emphasized.

Galuzin added that at the stage when the Armenian leadership  recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, not a word was said about  the rights and security of the Karabakh Armenians. "The relevant  documents published by the European Union say nothing about this. The  situation has changed radically, and it is very strange to accuse us  of not fulfilling something. We must also remember that before this  Russia and other CSTO members "We were ready to send a CSTO  observation mission to Armenia, but, unfortunately, we received a  refusal from the top Armenian leadership. Instead, an EU observation  mission was called to Armenia, which did not play any stabilizing  role," the Deputy Foreign Minister of the Russian Federation assured.

Regarding the prospects for bilateral relations, Gazuliz emphasized  that Moscow on the issue of Russian- Armenian relations has always  proceeded from the fact that at the official level it will resolve  complex issues professionally, through diplomatic channels, without  any emotional injections into the media space.

"But, unfortunately, from the Armenian side we saw an intensification  of public unfriendly rhetoric towards Russia. As a result, we were  forced to publish the statement you mentioned on September 25. That  is, we transferred this controversy to the public space only after  the intensity of the anti-Russian rhetoric of the official Yerevan  began to go off scale.

"I do not want to cite here all our arguments indicating the  unfriendly behavior of official Yerevan. But let me only remind you  of such steps as holding Armenian-American military exercises against  the backdrop of the refusal of educational and training activities  within the CSTO. About such challenging steps as the trip of the wife  of the Prime Minister of Armenia to Kiev and communication with  [Ukrainian President Vladimir] Zelensky, as well as the communication  between the Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, Mr.  [Alen] Simonyan,  and his Ukrainian colleague [Ruslan] Stefanchuk. Recently, various  kinds of guests from Europe have been frequenting Yerevan, who also  used Yerevan as a platform for various kinds of anti- Russian  statements.

"And yet, we very much hope that Yerevan will adequately assess the  importance of the Russian-Armenian partnership. And they will  proceed, first of all, from those strong, centuries-old ties that  unite the peoples of Russia and Armenia," he said.