ArmInfo. It is obvious that the falsehoods and fakes that the Russian President allegedly recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan back in 2020 are intended to confuse the Armenian and international public. This was stated on April 25 during a weekly briefing by official representative of the Russian Foreign Ministry Maria Zakharova in response to a request to comment on the theses that the Russian President recognized Artsakh as Azerbaijani back in 2020.
According to Zakharova, these theses are periodically thrown into the information space of both Armenia and the global information space. "The statements and actions of the Russian leadership are absolutely shamelessly distorted," the Russian diplomat noted.
In this vein, she proposed to cite once again the facts of how events developed in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone. In that vein, Zakharova recalled that it was thanks to the personal participation of the Russian President that on November 9, 2020, a tripartite declaration on a ceasefire and cessation of all hostilities in the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict zone was adopted.
"At the same time, a so-called 'gentleman's' agreement was reached between the leaders of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Russia to postpone the decision on the issue of determining the status of Nagorno-Karabakh for future generations," she recalled, adding that the Russian side has repeatedly commented on this matter in detail.
Zakharova then cited several quotes from the Russian President on this matter. "The President of Russia said them on November 17, 2020 during a press conference. In particular, he said: "Nobody, not even Armenia, recognized the independence of Nagorno-Karabakh. From the point of view of international law, Azerbaijan was returning territories that it and the entire world community considered Azerbaijani territory. But the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh has not been settled. We agreed that we will maintain the status quo of the current situation." How, after these quotes have been recorded, are on the website of the President of Russia, in the archives of the media, how such stuffing can be done is completely incomprehensible," she said, also once again noting that the Russian position was clear and understandable, as evidenced by quotes from the President of the Russian Federation.
At the same time, Zakharova recalled that it was following the results of the October 6, 2022 Prague summit under the auspices of the EU that the Armenian leadership recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as Azerbaijani territory. "This is also confirmed by quotes from official statements of the Armenian leadership. Moreover, there were leaks in the mass media that the agreement on this matter was approved by the American side at a meeting of high-ranking representatives of Armenia and Azerbaijan at the end of September 2022 in Washington. Probably, this also requires some "statements from official Yerevan," she noted, advising people to pay attention to statements of this kind, and not false statements and attempts to invent something that did not exist.
Zakharova emphasized that Russia will defend its interests with concrete facts.