Category: 2021

Nikol stole from the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh their small homeland, has he stolen their dignity as well? This is what deputy of the opposition “Armenia” Faction of the National Assembly of Armenia Andranik Tevanyan wrote on his Facebook page.

“Where is the voice of Artsakh?

The fact that Arayik Harutyunyan, the clown during the war who was appointed President of Artsakh, wouldn’t react to the anti-state ideas and obscene lies of Nikol Pashinyan in regard to Artsakh, was predictable, but it will be a shame, if there is no reaction from other state and semi-state structures, army generals, marshals, admirals, generalissimos, presidents, heroes, anti-heroes, forces referring to themselves as political forces and the so-called parliament.

Nikol stole from the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh their small homeland, has he stolen their dignity as well?” he wrote.

There is something I have been constantly thinking about since yesterday – is there at least someone in the Armenian reality who can remind me of any Azerbaijani (not to mention an Azerbaijani official) who had such audacity to talk about the rights of Armenians (not to mention the people of Artsakh who are fighting for their legitimate rights) in front of the audience of the country after 1988? This is what Speaker of the National Assembly of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Ashot Ghulyan wrote on his Facebook page.

“I try not to touch upon the developments unfolding around Artsakh much, and one of the reasons why is because I had a naïve desire to not deepen my current distrust in the de facto incumbent authorities of the two Armenian republics…it is naïve because there is no sign that those above us are seeking to gather and connect the broken pieces of the so-called trust. The situation is devastating, at least in Yerevan, toward which thousands of Armenians of Artsakh are looking with hope…

There is something I have been constantly thinking about since yesterday – is there at least someone in the Armenian reality who can remind me of any Azerbaijani (not to mention an Azerbaijani official) who had such audacity to talk about the rights of Armenians (not to mention the people of Artsakh who are fighting for their legitimate rights) in front of the audience of the country after 1988?

What the incumbent Prime Minister of Armenia was presenting to the Armenian public for 37 consecutive minutes and in the way that things were presented in 1937, is definitely a repetition of the justifications of Azerbaijan, with the tricks to protect the rights of its citizens by all possible and impossible means. It was impossible to not notice that, for a moment, even the reporter for Armenian Public Television, who had “practiced”, was surprised to hear what the Prime Minister was saying in response to her questions about the de-occupation of Shushi and Hadrut.

If anyone can show the meaning of ‘reconnaissance through fighting’ during the Four-Day Artsakh War in April 2016, and the logic of martial art to start ‘a real battle’ four years later and Azerbaijan’s preparation for a war by actively arming itself after ‘the catastrophe of the negotiations’, I am ready to accept the fact that I have no command of the ‘new and brilliant’ terminology in political science. However, at this moment, I have only one conclusion: “We are in a sad situation, sirs!”

Concealing one’s lack of ability to find a way out with the magic of rhetoric will not lead to any positive outcome,” wrote Ghulyan.

The assessments that the Prime Minister of Armenia made during his recent press conference are extremely dangerous for the vital rights of the Armenians of Artsakh and obstruct protection from the policy of genocide of Azerbaijan. This is stated in the statement that Human Rights Defenders of Armenia and Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) Arman Tatoyan and Gegham Stepanyan put into circulation.

“The approaches voiced at the press conference of the Prime Minister of Armenia on Dec. 24 completely contradict the natural rights of the Armenians of Artsakh to security and create fertile ground for Azerbaijan’s violations. These approaches fundamentally jeopardize the natural right to national self-determination.

According to the Prime Minister of Armenia, the consistent discriminatory policy of persecution against the Armenian people, the atrocities, the deprivation of property by Azerbaijan in 1923 and other illegal acts for the eviction of Armenians from the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) are overlooked.

The Azerbaijani state policy of hatred and enmity towards Armenia is that, in 2020, during the war, this led to massive ethnic cleansing in Artsakh, destruction of cities and villages (Stepanakert, Martuni, Shushi, Hadrut, etc.), depriving people of their homes, torture and atrocities, murder, desecration and destruction of churches.

After the war, the Azerbaijani Armed Forces, under the auspices of the Azerbaijani authorities, continue to violate the vital rights of the people of Artsakh and kill civilians.

We consider the assessments of the Prime Minister of Armenia extremely dangerous. They substantiate the supremacy of political issues over human rights, reinforce Azerbaijan's false theses that ignore human rights. We urge everyone to stop ignoring human rights, creating fertile ground for false Azerbaijani theses, to exclude the subordination of human rights to political issues, as well as to refrain from creating artificial obstacles to protect the rights of our compatriots, especially in international instances,” the statement reads.

Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan responded to the responses of officials of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) to the statements that he made during his online press conference on Dec. 24. He particularly wrote the following on his Facebook page:

“Certain responses to and comments on my interview on Dec. 24 are bewildering, to say the least, and here are the reasons why:

1. During the interview, I talked about the content of the negotiations that existed before I became Prime Minister in 2018. Consequently, I couldn’t have had any impact on the emergence of that content.

2. In response to a question, I refuted the statement of former President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan according to which the content for negotiations left by the former authorities guaranteed that Nagorno-Karabakh would remain Armenian. I refuted this because during those negotiations it was recorded that the Azerbaijanis having resided in the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast during the Soviet era had the right to participate in making the decision on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh as residents of Nagorno-Karabakh. Consequently, if they are residents of Nagorno-Karabakh according to the content of the negotiations, they should have resided in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the Armenian side has never objected this content before the revolution in 2018.

3. As for the status that Nagorno-Karabakh had before the potential referendum on status, in this interview, I said in 2016 the mediators had presented three packages for negotiations (one before the Four-Day Artsakh War in April 2016, and the other two — later) where, unlike the Kazan document of 2011, the phrase “Nagorno-Karabakh shall obtain an interim status” was missing. In the third of those three documents, which was presented in August 2016, there was a provision stating that the decision on the legal and practical mechanisms for organizing life in Nagorno-Karabakh would be made by the United Nations Security Council, consulting with the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs, Azerbaijan, Armenia and the OSCE Chairperson-in-Office. This is what I considered a catastrophe in the process of negotiations because it is clear that the United Nations Security Council would make all decisions with the logic of the resolutions that it had previously adopted with regard to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue where Nagorno-Karabakh was recognized as a part of Azerbaijan.

4. By taking this and several other major problems into consideration I claimed from the podium of the National Assembly that before I became Prime Minister in 2018, with the existing content of the negotiations and realities, Artsakh had lost the opportunities to not be a part of Azerbaijan, both in theory and in practice.

5. When I became Prime Minister, I didn’t adapt to this, but fought against it. This is also why the war broke out.

6. Today the people who are telling me I shouldn’t negotiate on behalf of Nagorno-Karabakh are the people who had been criticizing me for saying that I don’t have the mandate to negotiate on behalf of Nagorno-Karabakh since 2018.

7. I understand that many respected people are complaining about the content of the negotiations that served as a cause and effect of the war in 2016 now. At the time, they were either unaware or had no right to complain. I am also complaining about that content, and I did everything I could to fight against that. I am sorry, but I can’t conceal the truth,” he wrote.

Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) can never be and will never be a part of Azerbaijan, and no government can subordinate the will of the people of Artsakh. This is stated in the statement issued by the “Country for Living” Party which reads as follows:

“The “Country for Living” Party reaffirms its position that in regard to Artsakh, our goal is and will be to enshrine the final status of Artsakh (the right to self-determination based on the referendum of December 10, 1991) and achieve international recognition of the status. Artsakh can never be and will never be a part of Azerbaijan, and no government can subordinate the will of the people of Artsakh.

In this context, the political party supports the statement that President of the Republic of Artsakh Arayik Harutyunyan made on and expresses its unconditional support to the Republic of Artsakh in the process of full exercise of the Armenians of Artsakh to their right to self-determination.

At the same time, we recall the decision “On the situation created in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic” adopted by the Supreme Council of the Republic of Armenia on July 8, 1992 and in effect to this day, which enshrines the following: “To consider unacceptable for the Republic of Armenia any international or domestic document stating that the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is a part of Azerbaijan.”"