Pashinyan confirmed that he recognizes Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan

Baku/22.05.23/Turan: The territory of Azerbaijan with an area of 86.6 thousand square kilometers includes Nagorno-Karabakh, the Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference on Monday, answering the question of what is included in the territory of Azerbaijan with an area of 86.6 thousand square kilometers, "Sputnuk Armenia" reported. According to him, all the governments of the country recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

At the same time, he believes that "issues of the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh should be discussed between Stepanakert and Baku, while international guarantees are needed," without which the population of Nagorno-Karabakh may be subjected to "ethnic cleansing."

The Prime Minister was reminded that by the decision of the Supreme Council of Armenia, it has no right to sign a document recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, and later the Constitution of Armenia was drawn up on the basis of this decision.

Pashinyan said that in 1989 the Supreme Council of Armenia and the Regional Council of Nagorno-Karabakh decided to reunite Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. In 1990, Armenia adopted the Declaration of Independence, referring, among other things, to the above-mentioned decision.

Then in 1991, Nagorno-Karabakh declared its independence. The question arises – independence from whom? If from Armenia, isn't this a violation of the aforementioned joint decision? If it is violated, why are the violators not brought to justice? If independence was declared from Azerbaijan, then again, does  not this violate the joint decision of the Supreme Council and the Regional Council? After all, if Nagorno-Karabakh reunited with Armenia, then from whom does Nagorno-Karabakh become independent now? 

In 1998, there was a change of power in Armenia, and Yerevan ousted Nagorno-Karabakh from the negotiation process, after which the principle of a "common state" was taken as the basis of negotiations. The variant stated that Nagorno–Karabakh is an association of a certain type within Azerbaijan.

Then the Madrid Principles of Settlement were adopted, which referred to the resolution of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh together with Azerbaijan through a future referendum.

The future referendum had to be coordinated with Armenia and Azerbaijan. The question is, what does Azerbaijan have to do here if Nagorno-Karabakh has already declared its independence?

"If it is not Nagorno-Karabakh itself that is negotiating, then the issue automatically turns into a territorial conflict," the Prime Minister said. ---02D---