VIDEO: Pashinyan on Azerbaijan's Goals and Political Strategy

During today’s government meeting, acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that the Civil Contract party received a mandate to open a new era of peaceful development for Armenia and Artsakh in the snap elections of 2021.

“This mandate implies the formation of a favorable environment around our country, the opening of regional communications, the establishment of regional stability, and the establishment of lasting peace. However, since the elections, what we predicted has occurred and continues to occur—saying that the likelihood is high that Azerbaijan will do everything to obstruct peace in the region, and this will be done through a strategy that is also predictable: presenting Armenia or Artsakh as allegedly opposed to peace and to the processes of delimitation and demarcation, while creating false justifications for constructing an aggressive policy, the manifestations of which we have seen in recent days,” he said.

According to Pashinyan, the working group operating at the level of the Vice Prime Ministers of Russia, Armenia, and Azerbaijan is conducting quite constructive and effective work regarding the opening of regional communications. He stated that Azerbaijan's incomprehensible statements regarding the so-called “Zangezur corridor” have no relation to the work of the working group and the content of the January 11 Moscow trilateral statement.

“Azerbaijan makes statements about the corridor to disrupt the activities of the trilateral working group and to prevent the opening of regional communications because Azerbaijan’s goal is to continue its decades-long policy of blockading Armenia. However, we will continue our efforts within the trilateral working group to break Armenia’s blockade and, with the support of our Russian partners and international associates, we will achieve the opening of regional communications,” the acting Prime Minister declared.

Pashinyan stated that Azerbaijan attempts to present Armenia as the one opposed to and obstructing the work of delimitation and demarcation. “The reality is quite the opposite; it is Azerbaijan that opposes delimitation and demarcation efforts because it has brought forward obviously falsified maps attempting to justify the presence of its armed forces in certain parts of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia,” Pashinyan said.

He officially declared that Armenia is ready to resume the peaceful settlement process of the Karabakh conflict. “It is clear that we will diligently pursue the realization of the right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination,” Nikol Pashinyan stated.

According to the acting Prime Minister, Armenia will protect its sovereignty and territorial integrity by all possible means, including the activation of the Armenian-Russian joint troops and mechanisms of the CSTO.