Vazgen Sargsyan and Karen Demirchyan Prevented Implementation of This Document with Their Lives, Says Pashinyan

In 1998, the concept of territorial exchange for the resolution of the issue was placed on the negotiating table, under which Armenia was to give up part of its territory to obtain Artsakh. At the time of the Istanbul summit, another document was circulating, which surpassed both territorial integrity and the right to self-determination. This was the document for the exchange of territories.

This was stated today, on June 20, in the parliamentary inquiry commission investigating the circumstances of the 44-day war of 2020 by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan.

This document (the Istanbul one) recorded the death of the Armenian fundamental visions for resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. True, it was not accepted, and there is an opinion—and I share that opinion—that the implementation of this document was prevented by Karen Demirchyan and Vazgen Sargsyan with their lives. If we pay attention to these documents, they pertain to August, September, October, and November of 1999.

Vazgen Sargsyan’s speech exists: 'Meghri is not an ordinary area.' There are memories, and there is a witness: the then Minister of Defense. He, long before becoming an official in our government, gave an interview and is a witness to this matter. True, it did not receive legal force, but such documents are formed as a result of discussions, conversations, and debates with the parties. All the topics that were discussed at that time are appearing again at the negotiating table.

For 22 years, our society heard nothing on this issue, for a simple reason: because there were two realities around the NKR issue—narrow expert and broad public—which did not cooperate with each other, were opposed to one another, and sometimes were unaware of each other's existence. The statement of the OSCE Lisbon summit chair in 1996 also had no legal force, but it expresses the viewpoint of the international community. As a result of 1999-2000, Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh found themselves caught in the grip of international narrow expert pressure and began to be squeezed like a tortoise.