On December 19, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke about the current policy of the Armenian government on the issue of Nagorno Karabakh in an interview with “First Channel”.
Turning to the question “Is the Karabakh issue closed? What do we want now?”, Pashinyan answered: “We want the sovereignty, territorial integrity, independence, statehood, and democracy of Armenia because I said in 2018 that I am the Prime Minister of Armenia and the state interests of Armenia should guide us. All of us, starting with me, and ending with my predecessors, 70-80 percent of Armenia’s resources, or not putting them in a mathematical calculation, the lion’s share was put on the Nagorno Karabakh issue. Armenia did not have a foreign policy, it had a Nagorno Karabakh policy, Armenia did not have a security agenda, it had a Nagorno Karabakh security agenda, etc.,
and so on. The resources that we should have invested in creating RA, we have invested in creating NKR. We have not taken into account the creation of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic according to the 1993 resolutions of the UN Security Council, the Lisbon summit, I can list again, I’m just saying briefly, according to the results of the 1999 Istanbul summit, according to the Madrid principles, 2016. with negotiation packages, it is impossible.
Do you understand, we have set a problem, we have spent our resources on solving a problem, the solution of which, from the beginning, the entire international community has prevented,” he said. According to Pashinyan, in the negotiation process of the settlement of the Nagorno Karabakh problem, there was never such an option that would offer a solution to the Nagorno Karabakh problem. “All options that were on the table assumed non-resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. There was an option [that was resolved] in 1999, it was the exchange of Meghri and Nagorno-Karabakh.”
The Prime Minister notes that the Armenian government’s approach to the problem of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians is as follows: if they do not have the opportunity to return, they should stay, live and work in Armenia. “What does Azerbaijan say? They say: do you want the return of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, rights, security, etc., no problem, let’s also record the rights of Azerbaijanis who emigrated from Armenia in the peace agreement.
Of course, we can call it the right of return of the Armenians of Nakhichevan, Baku, Sumgait, and Kirovabad, again the right of return of Armenians from many places, but here the topic is in the following, what logic are we following, are we now gathering resources to go to a new conflict? or are we gathering resources to go to peace and use those resources to establish a state in Armenia? In my opinion, this is the right way,” said Nikol Pashinyan.