ArmInfo. There has never been and cannot be any talk of surrendering any village in the Tavush region of Armenia, Armenia's Premier Nikol Pashinyan stated at his March 12 press conference, commenting on Baku's demand for the immediate "return of 4 villages" located on the border of the Tavush region of Armenia and the Gazakh region of Azerbaijan.
Baku made a corresponding statement last Saturday at the March 7 meeting of the border delimitation commissions, headed by the vice-premiers of the two countries, Mher Grigoryan and Shahin Mustafayev. "As for the four non-exclave Azerbaijani villages (Baganis Ayrim, Ashagi Eskipara, Kheyrimli and Gyzylgajili) occupied by Armenia, their belonging to Azerbaijan is indisputable, and they are subject to immediate release," the statement said. Baku is also confident that within the framework of the delimitation process "the issue of liberation of four exclave villages (Yukhary Askipara, Sofulu, Barkhudarlu in the Armenian Tavush, as well as Kyarki (Armenian - Tigranashen) in the Ararat region, on the border with Nakhichevan will be resolved.)"
At the same time, Baku denied the statements of the Armenian authorities that Azerbaijan occupied the territory of 31 Armenian settlements in five regions with a total area of about 200 square kilometers, calling it "an unfounded statement." Some of them came under the control of Azerbaijan back in the 1990s during the first Karabakh war, the other as a result of Azerbaijani aggression in 2021-2022.
The Armenian Foreign Ministry and the office of Deputy Prime Minister Grigoryan have not yet commented on Baku's direct demand, but before the meeting of the border delimitation commission in Mher Grigoryan's office they confirmed that Baku demands four villages without the intention of withdrawing its troops from Armenian territories.
Thus, at the beginning of today's press conference, Pashinyan showed a map of the Republic of Armenia, where, according to him, the internationally recognized borders are de jure fixed, separately pointing to the Artsvashen enclave. "There has never been or can be any discussion about the surrender of any village in the Tavush region. When the names of villages were announced in the Azerbaijani press, there had never been villages with such names on the territory of the Republic of Armenia, not only in Soviet times, but also after it," Pashinyan noted.
He pointed out that the border that existed de jure at the time of the collapse of the Soviet Union was confirmed by the Alma-Ata Declaration and not only by this declaration, but also by the agreements reached in Prague on October 6, 2022. "The Alma-Ata Declaration became the basis for recognizing each other's borders and mutual territorial integrity. Consequently, according to these agreements, the former administrative border that existed during the Soviet Union is what is on the other side of this administrative border, conditionally, is Azerbaijan, what is on this side is Armenia. In the process of delimitation, we must work to reproduce this boundary in some format. We must proceed from de jure reality. What is Armenia is Armenia, what is Azerbaijan is Azerbaijan," the prime minister noted. At the same time, Pashinyan does not exclude that the delimitation process could begin with the Tavush region.
According to him, during the negotiations at times the impression was created that the parties, "taking into account certain realities," "despite de jure borders," but according to de facto realities, could agree to a certain exchange of territories. But such a prospect could distort the process and lead to additional risks, Pashinyan believes. In this context, in his opinion, in order to avoid problems in the future, it is more correct to build new communications so that they pass through the de jure territory of the Republic of Armenia (the territories claimed by Azerbaijan are located in the Tavush region. There is an interstate highway connecting Armenia with Georgia - through Ijevan, Noyemberyan, Bagratashen - Ed.).
Pashinyan plans to visit the Tavush region to familiarize himself with the situation on the spot. He assured that specific decisions have not yet been made, pointing out the need to resolve issues within the framework of the process of de jure recognition of the borders of Armenia, and in the future to bring de facto actions into line with de jure realities.