When Tigran the Great Negotiated With Pompey, There Was No Azerbaijani State: Pashinyan to Aliyev

The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, once again reaffirmed that Nagorno-Karabakh has never been part of independent Azerbaijan. Just as Azerbaijan gained independence from the Soviet Union, so did Nagorno-Karabakh from Azerbaijan and the Soviet Union.

Pashinyan made this statement during a discussion on the Nagorno-Karabakh issue at the Munich Security Conference, which is also attended by Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev. He initially referred to Aliyev's historical 'hint,' emphasizing that such a deep dive into history was unnecessary.

“There was no state in the South Caucasus and, in fact, anywhere in the world that was called Azerbaijan when Armenian King Tigran the Great was negotiating with Pompey, the Roman military leader. Therefore, I don’t think it’s appropriate to go that far back. I could go even further back, to, say, 400 BC, but I will not, as I don’t consider that a reasonable approach,” stated Pashinyan.

The Prime Minister highlighted that it was the Caucasian Bureau that decided that Karabakh should be part of Armenia, and that was an entirely legal decision. “After that decision, under Stalin's personal initiative, that decision was changed in Moscow. It seems that there was a conspiracy, an agreement between Stalin, Lenin, and Atatürk. Karabakh has never been part of an independent Azerbaijani state. Karabakh was included in Azerbaijan only during the formation of the Soviet Union.”

“When we talk about territorial integrity, we must determine which country's territorial integrity we are discussing. My question is, if Azerbaijan respected the territorial integrity of the Soviet Union upon becoming an independent state, how did it respect that territorial integrity if Azerbaijan left the Soviet Union in the same way that Nagorno-Karabakh left the Soviet Union? You may say that I am now talking about a state that does not exist, that is, the Soviet Union, but the Soviet Republic that included Nagorno-Karabakh also does not exist; the Azerbaijani Soviet Socialist Republic does not exist, and that is the truth,” Pashinyan remarked.

He added, “Just as Azerbaijan gained independence from the Soviet Union, so did Karabakh gain independence from both the Soviet Union and Soviet Azerbaijan.”

Addressing Azerbaijan's president's statements regarding Khojaly, the Armenian Prime Minister recalled that in the mid-1990s, former Azerbaijani President Ayaz Mutalibov gave an interview to a Russian newspaper stating that the Khojaly incident was organized by the Azerbaijani opposition with the aim of ousting him from power. “And incidentally, this happened because as a result of this event, Mutalibov was removed from the presidency of Azerbaijan,” Pashinyan said.

Regarding the UN Security Council documents, he mentioned that their essence is to establish an unconditional and immediate ceasefire, meaning to stop any violence and military operations. “If you look at UN Security Council Resolution No. 884, it states that Azerbaijan has violated the ceasefire, and as a result, Azerbaijan has lost territories. Azerbaijan is the first to violate the rules of the Security Council’s documents. It’s very important to point that out,” Pashinyan emphasized.

In his view, it is not an appropriate approach for the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan to repeat the same things every time. “Unfortunately, for the last 25-30 years, we have been repeating the same things time and again. I am concerned that the international community may somewhat tire of hearing the same things. And I believe we need to come up with new ideas. Since I became the Prime Minister of Armenia through a non-violent, velvet, popular revolution, I realized that it is impossible to resolve a conflict that has lasted for 30 years with one or two steps. And I thought that to solve this problem, we needed revolutions. And I started a sequence of micro-revolutions,” highlighted the Prime Minister.

The Prime Minister of Armenia, Nikol Pashinyan, and the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, are participating in discussions regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh issue at the Munich Security Conference. The discussion is being moderated by Celeste A. Wallander, President and CEO of the U.S. Russia Foundation. Pashinyan and Aliyev also held a bilateral meeting lasting about half an hour before the discussion.