ArmInfo. Armenia's authorities intend to push ahead with the peace agenda, Artur Hovhannisyan, Secretary of the Civil Contract parliamentary faction told a briefing on January 18 as he commented on Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's statements.
According to the parliamentarian, the peace agenda proposed by the Armenian authorities is going through a difficult process from the very first days. It encounters resistance not only from outside, but also from within the republic itself.
However, as the deputy noted, the implementation of this initiative is not an easy task, as the country's public is constantly talking about. Often this process is accompanied by aggressive rhetoric from Baku. "We share the hope of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan that this rhetoric is not aimed at freezing the negotiation process, but even if we keep in mind that it is aimed at bringing the process to a dead end, we do not intend to abandon the stated policy that we are trying to promote with the assistance of our international partners. We will advance the peace agenda despite the presence of numerous obstacles," the MP said, adding that the alternative to the peace agenda is the war agenda. "The Republic of Armenia does not have a war agenda, there is a peace agenda, which we are guided by," the parliamentarian said.
In turn, NA deputy from the same faction Arusyak Julakyan, answering the question of whether Aliyev is guided by the war agenda, noted that commenting on the agendas of the Azerbaijani authorities is an extremely thankless task. "Of course, the President of Azerbaijan may be guided by a war agenda, which may be associated with the pre-election period, but what is important in this matter is what interests us in this whole process and what is the national interest of Armenia. And it is connected with the world, which was the reason for advancing the peace agenda," said Julakyan, expressing her conviction that she does not consider this agenda to be a failure.
Speaking about Aliyev's demands to open the road towards Nakhichevan, Julakyan noted that Armenia has come up with the "Crossroads of Peace" initiative, which clearly indicates all those roads and communications that Yerevan is interested in unblocking. The the project was proposed to the international community, including Azerbaijan and other states in the region.
On January 10, the President of Azerbaijan, continuing his belligerent rhetoric, voiced further territorial claims against Armenia, including Yerevan. He also demanded the creation of the so-called "Zangezur corridor," threatening otherwise to leave Armenia under blockade.