ArmInfo.. According to international law, the precedent of international recognition of Kosovo's independence can certainly be applied in the case of Artsakh. International law expert Ara Ghazaryan expressed a similar opinion to ArmInfo.
" What does recognition of Kosovo mean? This is the recognition by the international community of the absence of any international legal norms prohibiting any community from declaring its own independence. In other words, the court verdict recognizing Kosovo created the antithesis of the international principle of the territorial integrity of states. The antithesis, which later developed into the status of an international rights," he said.
According to Ghazaryan, given the indisputable observance of all rights, from freedom of assembly to the right to elect and be elected by the people of Artsakh, not a single country in the world has questioned the regularity of Artsakh's declaration of its own independence to this day. This, of course, also applies to Kosovo. At the same time, the expert stressed that the same international community does not recognize the similar right of communities that have declared independence in the face of violence, racism and intolerance.
"In this light, the statements of political leaders of some countries about the prevalence of the principle of territorial integrity over the principle of the people's right to self-determination proceeds solely from political expediency, and in no way from fundamental human rights. Armenia raised all these issues in the international arena long before the recognition of Kosovo. And the latter, having become a precedent, only strengthened our demands. And if the Artsakh conflict had not been considered, including through the prism of the right of peoples to self-determination, in the end, the OSCE Minsk Group itself would not have been formed in 1992," he stressed.
According to the lawyer, Baku's statements that the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group are pointless, are conditioned by its attempts to transfer the issue exclusively into the platform of the principle of territorial integrity. But they are faced with the recognition of the right to self-determination by all member states of the Minsk Group. Moreover, he recalled that the European Parliament once adopted a resolution on the need to specifically resolve the problem of Artsakh on the basis of the Artsakh people's right to independence.
"Thus, Azerbaijan's attempt to solve the problem by military-political means did not finally resolve it in any way. Armenians live in Artsakh, people who have rights live there, including the right to their own self- determination. In other words, this fundamental right will exist as long as there is a community there. In this light, it is at least premature to talk about the final resolution of the Artsakh problem. And not only the Prime Minister of Armenia, but also international institutions, including the hegemonic country in face of the United States are already saying that it has not been resolved yet," the lawyer concluded.