Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, who is in Qatar, gave an interview to Al Jazeera Monday, during which he touched upon the processes taking place in the South Caucasus, the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) conflict, Armenian-Turkish relations, and several other topics. Below is the text of an excerpt from this interview.
Let me start with the agreement you signed with Azerbaijan, because of which you were subjected to strong pressures, so that the demonstrators even arrived at your house. How do you evaluate this agreement now?
I think you mean the trilateral statement signed [on November 9, 2020] by me, the President of Russia and the President of Azerbaijan. With that statement, the ceasefire came into force, all military actions ended, I think at that time it was a step aimed at ending the violence in Nagorno-Karabakh. I should mention that this statement does not address the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, but it is necessary to address the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, we hope that in the near future we will be able to address the Nagorno-Karabakh issue.
Interrupting the talk about Nagorno-Karabakh, I want to note that this particular issue assumes that there is a border demarcation commission between the two countries that will look into this matter. What is hindering its work so far?
In fact, we have communication with Azerbaijan in several dimensions, You are right, we have recently formed a delimitation commission between Armenia and Azerbaijan, it is very important to continue that work. Only one meeting has taken place, but we already have an agreement that the second meeting will take place in the Russian capital Moscow, and the third meeting in Brussels. We hope that with the support of our international partners, and of course, due to direct work, we will be able to carry out the delimitation of our borders.
What if this committee came to a decision that the entire territory of Nagorno-Karabakh will belong to Azerbaijan, what would be your position then?
In fact, the Delimitation Commission has nothing to do with the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, because, as I said, we have different dimensions of communication with Azerbaijan, one of which is demarcation. It’s also very important to mention the issue of border security, which is also under the mandate of this commission, because we must maintain stability and security along the entire border.
The second dimension is the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. There is another dimension, which is about the opening of regional, transport and economic communications. But, of course, the most urgent issue between Armenia and Azerbaijan and for the regional peace is the issue of Nagorno-Karabakh.
Interrupting the talks about peace with Azerbaijan, and this is exactly what angers the opposition. Russia, which is the sponsor of this agreement or the statement as it was called, is considered to be involved in a conspiracy against Armenia, and rather stands by Azerbaijan.
You know that Russia is Armenia's strategic partner and ally, but Russia is also a very close country for Azerbaijan. And in this context, we see the role of Russia as the guarantor of a trilateral statement, which, as I mentioned, was signed between the three parties.