Author: Arbi Tashjian

                                        Monday, 


Azerbaijan’s Proposal ‘Not Fully Addressing’ Possible Peace Agenda


Armenian Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan speaking in parliament (file photo).


While Armenia considers the latest five-point proposal by Azerbaijan for 
starting peace talks to be acceptable, it still believes that it fails to fully 
address the possible peace agenda, the country’s foreign minister has said.

“Ultimately, there is nothing inadmissible in Azerbaijan’s proposal that was 
passed to Yerevan on March 10 except that these issues do not fully address the 
possible agenda of comprehensive peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and our 
answers were aimed at completing that agenda,” Ararat Mirzoyan said in the 
National Assembly on Monday.

Armenia’s Foreign Ministry said on March 14 that it had applied to the OSCE 
Minsk Group co-chairs (the United States, Russia and France) requesting that 
they organize Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations on a peace treaty “on the basis 
of the UN Charter, the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, and 
the Helsinki Final Act.”

It followed a statement by Azerbaijani Foreign Minister Jeyhun Bayramov that 
Baku had submitted a five-point proposal to Yerevan to normalize relations.

Baku insists that a future peace treaty with Yerevan should be based on five 
fundamental principles, including mutual recognition of each other’s sovereignty 
and territorial integrity, mutual reaffirmation of the absence of territorial 
claims to each other and a legally binding obligation not to make such claims in 
the future, abstaining from threatening each other’s security, delimitation and 
demarcation of the border with the establishment of diplomatic relations and 
unblocking of transport links.

“We consider the rights of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and the addressing 
of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh to be key and fundamental. We are ready to 
start negotiations on this complete basis and it is with this proposal that we 
applied to the OSCE Minsk Group,” the minister said, answering questions of 
lawmakers.

He stressed that negotiations have not started yet.

“Once political settlement is acceptable to the parties, it should be put on 
paper and fixed in an agreement... We do not make any contradiction between 
territorial integrity and the right [of peoples] to self-determination or in the 
demarcation of borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan. We strongly believe that 
it does not concern the rights of Nagorno-Karabakh’s Armenians, their status, 
etc.,” Mirzoyan stressed.

The top Armenian diplomat again reminded that Armenia does not regard the 
Nagorno-Karabakh issue as a territorial dispute or a matter of territorial 
encroachment on Azerbaijan.

“It is solely and fully a question of the rights of Nagorno-Karabakh,” Mirzoyan 
underscored.

The OSCE Minsk Group has not yet responded to Armenia’s application. Azerbaijan 
has not responded to Armenia’s offer to hold peace talks on the basis of the 
Minsk Group either.

Earlier on Monday it was reported that Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov 
held separate telephone conversations with his Armenian and Azerbaijani 
counterparts. The subject of a possible peace deal between Armenia and 
Azerbaijan was reportedly discussed during both phone calls.



Armenian Opposition Wants PM To Report To Parliament On International Talks

        • Gayane Saribekian

Parliamentary hearings on an amendment initiated by the opposition Pativ Unem 
faction were held on .


An Armenian opposition alliance is seeking an amendment in the parliament 
regulations to make the country’s prime minister and foreign minister 
specifically accountable to lawmakers on international negotiations that they 
conduct.

Pativ Unem initiated hearings in Armenia’s National Assembly on the matter on 
Monday. The hearings were attended by the other opposition faction, Hayastan, 
and representatives of a number of extra-parliamentary parties. Members of 
Armenia’s ruling Civil Contract party did not attend the event.

Pativ Unem’s Hayk Mamijanian, who presented the amendment, said that they 
suggested that the prime minister and the foreign minister two or three times a 
year report to lawmakers behind closed doors about the security situation in the 
country and negotiation processes on foreign affairs.

“We don’t want a situation in which anyone could dare [tell lawmakers] that they 
are negotiating around whatever they want,” said Mamijanian in an apparent 
reference to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s remarks about Armenian-Azerbaijan 
talks a few months before the September-November 2020 war in Nagorno-Karabakh.

Mamijanian said that provisions under which lawmakers can summon foreign-policy 
makers to report on international negotiations are practiced in a number of 
countries.


Pativ Unem’s leader Artur Vanetsian (L) and secretary Hayk Mamijanian

Pativ Unem faction leader Artur Vanetsian highlighted the importance of adopting 
the bill in the light of the recent developments, in which Azerbaijan recently 
presented a five-point proposal on starting peace talks with Armenia and Armenia 
asked international mediators to organize negotiations with Azerbaijan.

“Azerbaijan is putting forward new principles, which, according to the 
opposition, are principles of renouncing Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh – red.]. And 
the negotiations are being conducted by the government whose policy has already 
led Artsakh and Armenia to the current disastrous state,” Vanetsian said, adding 
that the amendment they propose will help bring in a new element to the 
government’s accountability.

Former opposition lawmaker Naira Zohrabian, who was among those invited to 
attend the parliamentary hearings, was skeptical that the government would 
approve the bill.

“They will sooner report to [Azerbaijani President Ilham] Aliyev and Milli 
Majlis [Azerbaijan’s parliament] than to the Armenian parliament or Armenian 
society. I think that the countdown to the final loss of Artsakh has started. 
And we have no time for delay,” she said.

In explaining why members of the ruling Civil Contract faction did not attend 
the hearings pro-government lawmaker Hrachya Hakobian said: “We did not want to 
participate in a discussion that leads to nowhere.”

Hakobian said that the government is already fully accountable to the public as 
all of its members answer questions of lawmakers in parliament every second week.

“Moreover, there was an offer to the opposition to be informed about issues that 
could not be discussed in front of cameras during closed-door meetings, but they 
did not want to participate in such meetings,” Civil Contract’s member added.

Representatives of the Armenian opposition have also voiced concerns about 
possible Armenian concessions in the current dialogue with Turkey.

Hakobian described all opposition concerns that the government would sign any 
documents behind the public’s back as unfounded.



Yerevan Sees No Demand Yet For Evacuation Flights For Armenians Fleeing Ukraine

        • Marine Khachatrian

Refugees crossing the border from Ukraine to Poland arrive to a reception point, 
fleeing the Russian invasion of Ukraine, at a border checkpoint in Kroscienko, 
Poland, March 17, 2022.


Official Yerevan sees no expediency in organizing charter flights for citizens 
of Armenia fleeing the ongoing war in Ukraine to other countries at the moment.

In a written reply to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service, Armenia’s Ministry of Foreign 
Affairs said that there is no sufficient number of requests for evacuation by 
plane to organize such flights yet.

“There have not been and are not enough citizens of Armenia wishing to be 
repatriated that would make us consider the expediency of organizing a charter 
flight for them,” it said.

The ministry said that Armenians fleeing Ukraine mainly travel to five 
countries, namely: Poland, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova. It said that 
they had been crossing land checkpoints to enter those countries “on different 
days and in different numbers.”

“In none of the mentioned countries there has been a sufficient number of 
Armenian citizens wishing to return home,” the ministry added.

The ministry did not provide information on how many Armenian citizens had 
actually expressed a wish to return home. Nor did it say how many citizens of 
Armenia or ethnic Armenian citizens of Ukraine had left the country since the 
start of the Russian invasion in late February.

“Taking into account the fact that there are several checkpoints in Poland, 
Slovakia, Hungary, Romania and Moldova and citizens of other countries and not 
only Armenia cross these checkpoints, it is objectively impossible to control 
such a flow of people and register citizens of Armenia, especially that not all 
citizens of Armenia apply to Armenian embassies and consulates,” the ministry 
said.

The Office of Armenia’s High Commissioner for Diaspora Affairs told RFE/RL’s 
Armenian Service last week that it was trying to help Armenians leaving Ukraine 
and arriving in adjacent countries with documentation issues. It said that it 
was also receiving applications from families who wished to go to Armenia, but 
had no such opportunity. The Office did not report the exact number of such 
families, though.

Last week, Armenian authorities said that at least 4,000 citizens of Ukraine had 
arrived in Armenia since the start of the war in that country. It did not 
specify how many of them were ethnic Armenians.

Ukraine is home to an estimated 350,000 ethnic Armenians. According to local 
Diaspora organizations, at least 11 ethnic Armenians, including eight civilians, 
have been killed in Ukraine since the start of the war.


Reprinted on ANN/Armenian News with permission from RFE/RL
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