First Minister of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Armenia Raffi Hovhannisyan gave an interview with NEWSWEEK magazine. The full interview is below.
“For 26 days, the narrow and winding road that connects Armenia with the unrecognized Republic of Artsakh (also called Nagorno Karabakh or Nagorny Karabakh”) has been blocked by state-sponsored Abidjan activists. Russian peacekeepers, who are authorized to maintain the humanitarian corridor without interruption, do not interfere. European observers do not appear. The entry of food and medicine into Artsakh is prohibited. The republic is not only unrecognized, but also isolated from the world.
The Lachin Corridor – so called after I negotiated its opening in 1992 as the first foreign minister of RA – is the only, last and disappearing place through which 150,000 Armenians of Artsakh, 30,000 of them children, survive In this merciless winter of 2023.
While Russia and layers of the West, each in turn, will ride in Ukraine and beyond for delay or summation, there is naturally little reserve of attention for this ancient Armenian territory, which Stalin gave to Soviet Azerbaijan in a “divide and rule” manner a century ago, and then was restored by the Armenian majority in parallel with the declaration of independence of Armenia and Azerbaijan in 1991.
2020 In September, Azerbaijan broke the long-standing international ceasefire and launched a surprise and bloody war of aggression against both Karabakh and Armenia with the help of Turkish armed forces, Islamic State militants from Syria, Pakistani mercenaries and Israeli drones.
Continuing to this day, despite Russian President Vladimir Putin’s mediation in 2020. After the cease-fire signed in November, the armed aggression of Baku, the “Land of Fire” (indeed, the virgin nature of Artsakh became a fireball in some places due to the bombardment with the banned chemical substance, white phosphorus) caused more than 5,000 Armenian victims, in the occupation of hundreds of square miles of the sovereign territories of Armenia and Karabakh. including dozens of towns, villages, schools, hospitals, churches and other cultural heritage assets, as well as countless prisoners of war and kidnapped citizens held in Baku today.
The presence of a Russian peacekeeping force, a trial European monitoring mission, and competing Russian and Western so-called peace plans have only proven their own inability to forge a common path forward, especially given Azerbaijan’s boundless bigotry and the weakness of a down-to-earth, capitulated Armenian regime ready to take over. surrender everything to keep.
However unlikely, a responsible international community in the midst of controversy might be able to overcome its own overconcentration, whether tactical or tectonic, and consider the following steps:
- To propose and implement the UN mandate for Nagorno-Karabakh to ensure its freedom, national identity and self-determination, and to save it from an apparently imminent genocide.
- Bring the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, to court for proven war crimes against Armenians and other nations, as well as crimes against humanity.
- Stop the artificial respiration of Nikol Pashinyan, the petty dictator who has become a democrat in Armenia, and open a true era of civil rights, the rule of law and human hope in this long-suffering country.
- Respect the sovereignty and territorial integrity of Armenia and guarantee the withdrawal of all foreign forces from its territory, the return of all prisoners of war from Azerbaijan and the restoration of cultural heritage in neighboring countries.
- Recharge the operational sponsorship of the OSCE Minsk Group and trilateral cooperation, which would imply progress through a broader review of global crises.
- To encourage the next administration of Turkey (the actor has shown his obvious incompetence and renegade unwillingness) to recognize the Genocide and Depatriation of the Armenian people, to pay for it, and then to regulate the relations with the Republic of Armenia.
- Enact a new level of geopolitical discourse with Iran while its administration makes the same transformation of communication immediately and comprehensively with its own society.
Nagorno-Karabakh with its 150,000 citizens is now at death’s door under the indifferent gaze of the world. In fact, civilization itself is once again rising to the altar of sacrifice.
As in 1453, during the siege of Constantinople, the fate of regions, lands, and value systems hangs in the delicate balance.
The moment is epoch-making.”