Former Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskanian a statement released today, rebuked Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan for attending the inauguration of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan in Ankara on Saturday, arguing that Pashinyan “did not represent the Armenian people, only himself”.
Oskanian served as foreign minister from 1998 to 2008 and is a vocal critic of Pashinyan’s foreign policy vis-à-vis Turkey and Azerbaijan.
“With this visit, Pashinyan once again showed that he is far removed from diplomacy. I have often said, and I will not hesitate to repeat, that if he had the a minimum diplomatic skills, today we would have Artsakh with the full territory of Nagorno-Karabakh, the 20 km Lachin Corridor, recognized by Azerbaijan, Turkey and the international community, an interim border guaranteed by the UN Security Council. status, with open borders with Azerbaijan and Turkey,” Oskanian writes.
Oskanian labeled Pashinyan’s visit to Ankara as “undignified” given Erdoğan’s assistance to Azerbaijan and the Turkish president’s insults targeting Armenians.
Oskanian said Pashinyan’s attempts to woo Turkey to take a softer line in normalization talks with Armenia are doomed to fail.
“Pashinyan doesn’t understand that by providing aid to Turkey after the earthquake and participating in Erdoğan‘s swearing-in ceremony, he cannot woo Turkey in terms of the settlement of Armenian-Turkish relations. Turkey will take whatever steps deem it expedient.”
Oskanian says Pashinyan should not have gone to Ankara if it was to cause anguish to even just one Armenian.
He noted that French President Emmanuel Macron and Greek PM Kyriakos Mitsotakis didn’t attend Erdoğan’s inauguration because Erdoğan had insulted them.
Oskanian was an early supporter of the 2007 “Madrid Principles” regarding the settlement of the Karabakh conflict envisaging a phased resolution of the conflict that would start with a gradual liberation of the districts of Azerbaijan bordering on Karabakh that were partly or fully occupied by Armenian forces during the 1991-94 war. In return, Karabakh would retain a land corridor to Armenia and be able to determine its final status in a future referendum.
He maintained that no peaceful settlement was possible without the return of most of the Armenian-controlled territories surrounding Nagorno Karabakh.