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YEREVAN, FEBRUARY 18, ARMENPRESS. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan responded to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s usual narratives and fake claims, such as ‘there is no such administrative unit as Nagorno Karabakh, the word Nagorno Karabakh is no longer valid’, as well as about “destroyed and desecrated mosques”, and that the 9 November 2020 trilateral statement constitutes a "capitulation" during the Munich Security Conference panel discussion.
The Armenian Prime Minister reminded Aliyev that the 9 November 2020 statement signed by Aliyev himself contains the wording ‘Nagorno Karabakh’ and cautioned the Azerbaijani leader against making highly dangerous statements that could be viewed as attempts to give religious context to the situation or deepen enmity. Pashinyan said the platform must be used to make things better.
“About Nagorno Karabakh, you know, President [Aliyev] mentioned trilateral statement, on that trilateral statement we have provision, and we have Nagorno Karabakh on trilateral statement and we have signature of the president of Azerbaijan under this document. And we have Lachin corridor that should be freely operable – and by the way according to that trilateral statement – out of control of Azerbaijan, and it is according to the signature of president of Azerbaijan. And recently you know, some Armenian children from Nagorno Karabakh tried to travel by bus through Lachin corridor and they were stopped, and some masked Azerbaijani persons intruded into the bus and children there were screaming and that was the last attempt of the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh to freely commute through Lachin corridor. President Aliyev mentioned ‘destroyed mosques’. You know, I would like to say that in 2017 in Azerbaijan several mosques were destroyed for building new roads. And president Aliyev mentioned that I don’t know how many thousands of mosques were destroyed, and by the way in the Soviet times in Azerbaijan approximately 1,560 mosques were destroyed, it was usual thing for Soviet Union. In Soviet Armenia, churches were destroyed, mosques were destroyed, and you know the Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh shouldn’t pay the debts from Soviet times. And it is very important, it is a very dangerous narrative because I am afraid sometime there is an impression that Azerbaijan wants to give some religious context to this whole situation. It is very dangerous there is no any religious context in the conflict, and by the way in our country we have Muslim minority, in our country we have an acting mosque, and that is the reality. And you know the wording of Azerbaijan, what is concerning? Using the wording of such kind of almost offensive wording, ‘capitulation’ et cetera, you know from a side there could be an impression that now Azerbaijan wants to show – and that is maybe reality – that Azerbaijan adopted a revenge policy, and maybe that is the policy of Azerbaijan? But as it was mentioned we have very complicated history, I just said, yes maybe it is a historical meeting, but for what purpose we want to use this? For inflaming intolerance, hate, aggressive rhetoric in our region? Or in opposite, we want to use this platform for making things better, we think that this platform ought to be used for constructive purposes. Of course, we can now tell many stories of enmity. But what is the meaning of our leadership? To deepen that enmity? Or to use our capacities our authorities our mandates? I am proud that I have been able, that our government was able even after the devastating war to have free, democratic elections in our country that was worldwide acknowledged as free, democratic and transparent and competitive. And as I said, from our point of view the solution is democracy, the solution is transparency, solution is dialogue, respect, for all countries in our region. And we are ready to work in that direction,” PM Pashinyan said in response to Aliyev at a panel discussion alongside the Azerbaijani President, Georgian Prime Minister Irakli Garibashvili and the Secretary General of the OSCE Helga Schmid at the Munich Security Conference, moderated by Chairman of the Munich Security Conference Christoph Heusgen.