It`s not a question of 4 villages, it`s not a question of Armenia -  Pashinyan

ArmInfo. "Some clergymen remembered that there is a church there, they hold a 'show' service  there, how many times did they remember this church and how many times did they hold services there? "I don't understand, is this a stand-up?" Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in parliament on April 11.

Earlier, the head of the Tavush diocese of the Armenian Apostolic  Church, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, speaking about the mood of the  local residents, said that they were ready to give in and surrender.   "They tell me that they are waiting for me in Tavush. Sorry, I have  been to Voskepar, Kirants several times since I became Prime  Minister, both officially and unofficially.

Now the <Armenia> faction says that delimitation should be carried  out according to Soviet maps, then it accuses me of calling some  territories Azerbaijani. I say that as part of the Armenian SSR, that  is, on the maps on which, as you say, demarcation should be carried  out, there have never been villages whose names are voiced by  Azerbaijan," he said, once again emphasizing the names of these  villages - Baghanis Ayrum, Ashagy Eskipara Kheyrimli and  Gyzylgadzhili.

"I agree that It's not a question of 4 villages, it's not a question  of Armenia. You hit the spot! We are solving the issue of the  Republic of Armenia and the essence of this issue is as follows: we  say that we want to have a border there. If you ask what Armenia will  receive, Armenia will receive a border: the Republic of Armenia was  established on the territory of the Armenian SSR, and no one can  challenge this territory. But we must also understand that this is a  process that cannot be accomplished in one action. Of course, there  may be risks in this process, but they need to be managed," Nikol  Pashinyan emphasized.

Earlier, Baku demanded the immediate "return" of 4 villages located  on the border of Armenia's Tavush region and Azerbaijan's Kazakh  region. The statement followed a meeting of the border delimitation  commissions, headed by the deputy prime ministers 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,  considering it "an unfounded statement." Some of them came under the  control of Azerbaijan back in the 1990s during the first Karabakh  war, the others as a result of Azerbaijani aggression in 2021-2022.