Those who were displaced from Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) need to be granted a refugee status, and a settlement for refugees needs to be established around Yerevan. This is what historian, member of the board of the “Armenian Population Forcefully Displaced from Shushi” NGO Ashot Harutyunyan said during a protest near the government building today.

“A trilateral agreement was signed last year, and it’s clear that the people don’t accept this. But even if we try to be governed by the points stated in that document, point 6 clearly states that there shouldn’t be Azerbaijani troops in Shushi now. But we see that Azerbaijan is already unilaterally breaching the agreement. Other points of the agreement state the return of refugees and forcefully displaced persons. If the Armenian government doesn’t accept us as refugees, how will there be return? This traces back to the policy led in 1988 when Azerbaijan presented its 350,000 refugees as 1,000,000 refugees. In 1988, over 800,000 refugees came to Armenia from Azerbaijan and weren’t granted any status,” Harutyunyan said.

According to him, the enemy country has established refugee settlements, invited international observers and showed the settlements to the world. “Armenia needs to do the same and establish a refugee settlement around Yerevan. If we Armenians want to win Azerbaijan in the war, we need to lead this policy so that we can exert pressure on Azerbaijan,” he added.