13:57,

YEREVAN, APRIL 13, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that the issue of the status of Nagorno Karabakh was essentially left out from the dimension of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairmanship format talks as of 2016.

Pashinyan was making the comments in parliament when asked by MP Vahagn Alexanyan on what took place in the negotiations process in 2016.

“What was the leitmotif of the 1998 events, Levon-Ter Petrosyan thought that the issue must be solved in a phased option, Serzh Sargsyan, Robert Kocharyan and the then-authorities of Artsakh were saying no, they weren’t accepting this, and that the issue must be accepted in a package option. And this became the leitmotif,” Pashinyan said.

According to the PM, the title of the negotiations document on his table was :” О первом этапе и дальнейших шагах Нагорно Карабахского урегулирования” – translating from Russian – On the First Phase and Future Steps of the Nagorno Karabakh settlement”.

“Meaning, the person who said that a phased solution is defeatism left in 2018 a document on the negotiations table that was titled that way. Meaning, the person who was carrying out a regime change against the phased solution again reached the phased solution. But there are so many splits in this phased solution. It is a question whether or not Azerbaijan agrees to this. They say they will solve the Karabakh issue this or that way, so why haven’t you. They forget  that they are presenting the ideas in unsigned papers as victory,” the PM said.

Speaking on the role of the Co-Chairs, the PM said: “They take the ideas of the sides, try to refine them and put it on paper. We can have all kinds of ideas. But as of 2018 the entirety of the Karabakh issue was so much split up, it wasn’t a phased option, it was rather a hyper-phased option. Meaning, from the 1998 phased option we reached the 2016 hyperphased option,” the PM said.

Speaking about a brief description of the 2016 events, he said: “In January the Co-Chairs present a negotiations package, the meaning of which is that Nagorno Karabakh will not have an interim status. The Armenian side naturally rejected it. Two months after presenting it the April War began, and then in July the second package is presented, where it is recorded that again Karabakh will not have an interim status. In August, the third package is presented where a new component is added to the negotiations papers – a UN Security Council draft resolution.”

Pashinyan cited former President Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s narrative during a 2017 interview that the status of Karabakh will be determined by the international community.

“This is what Levon Ter-Petrosyan meant most likely. Meaning, the NK status issue was essentially left out from the dimension of the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship format talks as of 2016. The issue was left out, that issue must be solved by the international community. But the international community must solve as part of several undeniable principles that in Karabakh as of 1988 there were also Azerbaijanis that left.  In the international community’s understanding it is impossible to address this issue without the protection of the rights of the Azerbaijanis of Nagorno Karabakh. And, essentially, this is all in the negotiations package,” the PM said, adding that this is included in the Madrid Principles as well.

Pashinyan said that there hasn’t even been any option that would even be unacceptable for Armenia but acceptable for Azerbaijan.

Speaking about the question addressed to his administration on how they fell into a trap in 2019, Pashinyan said: “What’s falling in a trap? That a negotiations package appears by which Armenia is expected to surrender seven regions to Azerbaijan. Serzh Sargsyan says how come we fell into the trap. We weren’t in a trap, that paper recorded what Serzh Sargsyan announced from this rostrum. That was the result of his last negotiations because as of 2019 we hadn’t even started negotiating. As of 2019 when that document was put on the table we hadn’t yet talked about substantive negotiations at all,” he said.

Speaking on the questions whether or not the war could’ve been prevented, PM Pashinyan said: “We could’ve prevented the war as a result of which we would have had this same situation, without the victims. The same situation, with all questions and nuances.”