ARF Issues Statement

Iskhan Sagatelyan, a representative of the ARF Supreme Council of Armenia and Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly, wrote on his Facebook page: "The ARF Worldwide Armenian Rights Organization, despite the defeatist and shameful positions of the authorities of independent Armenia, continues to defend our people's rights, confident that the protection of those rights cannot be contingent upon the existence of temporary and incompetent authorities."

Statement of the Central Council of the ARF Bureau on Armenian Rights:

In an interview on January 24, 2022, the Prime Minister made claims that, on one hand, distort historical facts, and on the other hand, almost exactly repeat Azerbaijani-Turkish theses, against which the Republic of Armenia and the global network of Armenian advocacy committees and offices have effectively fought for a long time. It is extremely painful to hear the repetition of hostile theses from the lips of the head of Armenia's executive power.

Among many hostile claims, Pashinyan stated that "the Republic of Armenia has never conducted a policy concerning the Armenian Cause," and primarily regarded the international recognition process of the Armenian Genocide as a result of Diaspora activities. In this context, when referring to the Armenian Cause, Pashinyan likely intends to mean the issue of reparations for the Armenian Genocide, deliberately neglecting the fact that the Kars Treaty of 1921, which is irrelevant in terms of international law, is still not recognized by the Republic of Armenia as the legal basis for the Armenia-Turkey border.

This is evidenced by the following statement made by President Serzh Sargsyan in his message on October 10, 2009: "The issue of borders between Armenia and Turkey is subject to resolution in accordance with international law. The protocols say nothing more than that." Moreover, according to the constitutional review of the Zurich Protocols by the Constitutional Court of Armenia on January 12, 2010, the border between Armenia and Turkey is referred to as a "de facto border."

The all-Armenian declaration dedicated to the 100th anniversary of the Armenian Genocide, formulated by the state commission coordinating the commemorative events and presented on January 29, 2015, at Tsitsernakaberd, remains a unique national document regarding the circumstances of the Armenian Genocide and the upcoming actions, which, with its comprehensiveness and consensus, continues to hold significant value to this day.

It should also be noted that if the process of international recognition of the Armenian Genocide has primarily been the result of Diaspora organizations' activities, its effectiveness multiplied when the current authorities of Armenia supported this work, corresponding to the commitment undertaken with the Declaration of Independence of Armenia, adopted on August 23, 1990.

Regarding the continuous references made by the current authorities of Armenia to the government's activity program concerning the international recognition of the Armenian Genocide, it should be noted that in the government's program for 2021-2026, it is stated: "The international recognition of the genocide will not serve to increase regional tensions but, on the contrary, aims at de-escalation in the region." The question arises: how is it possible to reconcile the international recognition of the genocide with the development of relations with Turkey?

It should also be noted that the international recognition of the Genocide is not presented as a process within the government program, which indicates an attempt to exclude the recognition process from Armenia's foreign policy agenda.

The Prime Minister of Armenia has not shied away from making extremely dangerous statements regarding the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. We regret that the Prime Minister of Armenia is either so unprepared that he does not know, or he intentionally distorts the correlation between the right to self-determination and the principle of territorial integrity in international law.

The dispute concerning the relationship between the right to self-determination and the principle of territorial integrity was most clearly articulated in the International Court of Justice's advisory opinion on Kosovo's unilateral declaration of independence dated July 22, 2010. Without delving too deeply into the legal and political nuances of that decision, it is simply noted that the Court explicitly stated: "The scope of the principle of territorial integrity is limited to the realm of relations between recognized states." As a conclusion, the Court accepted that international law does not prohibit unilateral declarations of independence.

Moreover, as defined in the UN Charter, the concepts of right and principle are distinct from one another, and principles are aimed at ensuring rights, not the opposite. Therefore, the principle of territorial integrity and the right to self-determination cannot oppose each other, and the issue of territorial integrity between the Republic of Artsakh and the Republic of Azerbaijan cannot even arise since, as established by the International Court of Justice, the principle of territorial integrity can only be applied in relations between mutually recognized states.

Thus, instead of utilizing the objective circumstances that fortify the Armenian side's positions in relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan, the Armenian authorities have, unable to do so, entirely succumbed to the shameful repetition of Azerbaijani-Turkish theses, while in the process of normalizing relations with Turkey, they have satisfied the well-known Turkish preconditions.

The ARF Worldwide Armenian Rights Organization, independent of the defeatist and shameful positions of the authorities of Armenia, continues to defend our people's rights, confident that this protection cannot be contingent on the existence of temporary and incompetent authorities.