Video: Pashinyan Comments on His Statement About Lowering the Bar on the Artsakh Issue

At this moment, the public is familiar with the content of all documents that are the subject of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations, namely, the five points presented to us by Azerbaijan and our response to them, which has essentially been fully published during speeches and interviews. This was stated by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today, April 22, during a cabinet meeting.

“We will continue this approach in the future, as far as the ethics of diplomatic inter-state relations allows. Regarding my statements about international calls to lower the bar on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, I want to express my astonishment at the speculation that has followed. The proposals presented by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group in 2016 regarding the settlement of Nagorno-Karabakh were nothing more than a document lowering the bar, because the essence of that document was to postpone the question of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh indefinitely. By indefinitely, it should be noted that decades, if not more, were implied.

In the proposals of 2016, there was also a lowering of the bar in the offer to delegate the question of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh to international bodies, in particular, to bodies that had already expressed positions on the issue within the framework of Azerbaijan's territorial integrity. Such calls to lower the bar were also made at the OSCE's Lisbon Summit in 1996. That theme appeared in the idea of a 'Common State' in 1999, the Kivestian process of 2001, and the Madrid Principles from 2007, on which the offers of January, July, and August 3, 2016, were also based. Various documents adopted by international bodies since the 1990s have contained direct and indirect calls to lower the bar. The careful concealment of the significance of these facts from our public does not mean that they did not exist,” said Pashinyan.

According to him, the fact that he is opening as many cards as possible in front of the public is evidence that accountability before the public is an important aspect for them. “In the short-term, long-term, and medium-term, our strategy is as follows: to ensure a solution that allows the residents of Artsakh to live in Artsakh and to feel and consider themselves as Artsakhis and Armenians. Any resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue or any situation established in Nagorno-Karabakh that does not ensure these conditions is unacceptable to us and will never be. This is the core; the rest, excuse me, is just rhetoric. The forces that want the Government of Armenia to adopt rhetoric leading to a new war and the depopulation of Artsakh are surrendering not only Artsakh but also Armenia. But we can also be confident that we will not allow this to happen. The people of Armenia will not allow this. We will also not allow various provocative statements aimed at diverting us from the peace agenda, because we are convinced that it is this agenda that will ensure the future of Armenia and Artsakh,” emphasized Pashinyan.