As ARMENPRESS was informed from the Office of the Prime Minister of Armenia, PM Pashinyan thanked French President Emmanuel Macron for such an important initiative, noting that it’s an important platform for discussing the current security challenges, developing joint concepts for overcoming those challenges.
“What I would like you to know about the security environment of our country? I have to record a strange fact – 2 of our 4 borders are closed, the other two can be assessed as half-closed. Why do I say half-closed? Because in the south we share border with Iran and as you know there are some tensions over Iran, and we have border with Georgia in the north and the tense relations between Georgia and Russia have some negative impact.
But of course, the key security challenge for us is Nagorno Karabakh issue. And frankly speaking, becoming the Prime Minister of Armenia and being involved in international affairs I was surprised at the fact that the international community has some misunderstanding over the NK issue.
And there is also another very interesting fact. Those interested in NK conflict should know the roots of this conflict. First of all the reason was the decision made by Stalin regime by which Karabakh was given to newly established Soviet Azerbaijan. When in 1986 Mikhail Gorbachev became the leader of the Soviet Union, he launched a process of democratic reforms and announced democracy, perestroika. The overwhelming majority of the people of Karabakh, who were and remain Armenians, and they had a status of autonomous oblast in Soviet Azerbaijan, decided to use this opportunity and in line with the legislation of the USSR, decided to secede from Azerbaijan.
The leadership of Soviet Azerbaijan decided to suppress this movement, using levers of force – police and so on. This was how the very initial stage of this conflict started. Afterwards, when the collapse of the USSR started, Azerbaijan, like many other Soviet states, decided to become an independent state. And the law of the USSR says that if any of the member states decided to get independence, the autonomous oblasts inside them decide their future on their own.
Parallel with Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh also started the process of getting independence. And like Azerbaijan seceded from the USSR, the same way Nagorno Karabakh seceded from Azerbaijan. As a result, Azerbaijan decided to use military force, forcing and suppressing the people of NK, it waged a war. There were many territories in NK where ethnic cleanings started, and as a result the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh, nearly 80-85% of the total population, started self defense actions. And as it turned out, they were able to do that. They forced Azerbaijan to put up with the situation.
Ceasefire agreement was signed between Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia on May 12, 1994. After that, even before that, the negotiation process had already kicked off and a format of negotiations was developed. According to the decisions of international institutions, it had 3 sides – Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh and Armenia.
The negotiation process had started already in 1992. For a very long period NK was involved in the negotiation process as a side. By the way, some meetings occurred between the leaderships of Nagorno Karabakh and Azerbaijan, also between the defense ministers of Azerbaijan, Nagorno Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia. Unfortunately, the NK conflict has not been settled yet.
There are a number of reasons for that. First, in 1998 was left out of the negotiation process. As a result (not only because of this reason, but also because of it) now Azerbaijan refuses to negotiate with NK. They even refuse to negotiate in the format of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs, where Russia, France and the USA are involved. While according to this format, there are 3 negotiation sides, which are Azerbaijan, Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh.
On the other hand, the government of Azerbaijan insists that NK should be part of Azerbaijan. But that’s a very strange claim because it’s impossible to understand how the government of Azerbaijan can think that NK is part of its territorial integrity, and at the same time refuse to talk with it. Isn’t it strange? The Azerbaijani leaders say they want to see NK as part of Azerbaijan but refuse to negotiate with the people of NK. What does this mean? Unfortunately, only one thing. The authorities of Azerbaijan do not plan to talk with those people, negotiate with them, since they want to have territories, but not the people, to be more precise, territories without people. The policy of Armenophobia goes far ahead. The foreigners visiting Nagorno Karabakh appear in the black list of Azerbaijan. The citizen of any country that has Armenian surname or Armenian origin cannot enter Azerbaijan. This happened with Bloomberg’s reporter, a U.S. citizen, a musician from Turkish orchestra, a 8-year old child and 80-years old Russian pensioner.
Recently a car driver was arrested for just listening to Armenian music.
A worse incident happened with “Arsenal” football club member Henrikh Mkhita...
