Unacceptable Actions by Armenia Towards Recognizing Artsakh as Part of Azerbaijan: Artak Beglaryan

Unacceptable and illegal are the actions and statements aimed at recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan by the Republic of Armenia itself. This was stated by Artak Beglaryan, an advisor to the Prime Minister of Artsakh.

“Some considerations regarding Armenia's ongoing trends to recognize Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, as well as the recent statements by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and the President of the European Council Charles Michel concerning Artsakh:

1. Any document or statement recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan is strictly unacceptable, as has been repeatedly stated by the authorities of the Republic of Artsakh at the level of the President, National Assembly, Security Council, and Ministry of Foreign Affairs. It is unacceptable because:
1. In 1991, the people of Artsakh exercised their inalienable right to self-determination based on fundamental international legal documents (UN Charter, international covenants on rights, Helsinki Final Act, etc.), and in subsequent years, protected it and demonstrated their will and ability for sovereignty.
2. Although the Republic of Artsakh has not been fully recognized by the international community, the fact of its independence has been accepted as a reality, and its status has been internationally recognized as that of a disputed and conflict-affected territory.
3. The primary subject of any decision regarding the status and future of Artsakh is the people of Artsakh themselves; other significant and minor actors have the right only to express their positions, but they do not have the right to make decisions on behalf of the people of Artsakh or turn Artsakh into a bargaining chip.
4. Therefore, ignoring this path and the rights and existential threats of the indigenous and titular people of Artsakh is nothing less than an international crime.
2. An additional entrapment and false argument from Azerbaijan is the thesis of the self-operating continuity of Soviet borders, based on which Armenia and Azerbaijan have engaged in reciprocal recognition of territorial integrity in recent times. Why is this argument baseless and false?
1. The Soviet administrative divisions could not, according to the logic of the principle of uti possidetis juris (continuity of former internal borders), become state borders because this principle is not a self-operating one and was only applied with significant reservations between certain former colonized states in South America and Africa, and only with clear agreements in place. A good example of the exclusion of this principle is Kosovo, as in the case of the collapse of Yugoslavia, the primary principle for clarifying the borders of the former member states was 'secession for salvation,' which is inextricably grounded in the right to self-determination of peoples.
2. Even Azerbaijan itself rejected the continuity of Soviet borders at the highest level when its Supreme Council, in the declaration on the “Restoration of the State Independence of Azerbaijan” adopted in 1991, and the constitutional act on the same matter, renounced the Soviet heritage of Azerbaijan and declared itself the successor to the Azerbaijan Democratic Republic that existed from 1918 to 1920. This fact is important to emphasize not only because Azerbaijan has initially rejected the application of the principle of uti possidetis juris but also because, in the pre-Soviet period, Nagorno-Karabakh was internationally regarded by the League of Nations as a disputed territory, including much broader areas compared to the previous NKAO and with a common border with Armenia.
3. Even if Armenia and Azerbaijan mutually agree to base delimitation and demarcation on the Soviet internal administrative borders, it is important to emphasize that this does not yet exclude the right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination at least within the territory of the former NKAO, as this area was an enclave in the last decades of the Soviet era and had no relation to the borders of the two former Soviet republics. Therefore, in extreme cases, this might also provide Armenia an opportunity to somehow reconcile the continuity of Soviet borders with the recognition and protection of Artsakh's right to external self-determination. However, this requires that Armenia does not attempt in any way to recognize Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan and does not close off the possibility and obligation to support Artsakh's self-determination struggle.
3. Unacceptable and illegal are primarily the actions and statements aimed at recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan by the Republic of Armenia, not only based on well-known international legal grounds but also on the internal legislation of the Republic of Armenia:
1. The Declaration of Independence of the Republic of Armenia explicitly recognizes Artsakh as part of the Republic of Armenia ‘based on the joint decision of December 1, 1989, of the Supreme Council of the Armenian SSR and the National Council of Nagorno-Karabakh.’ Although subsequently, the path of Artsakh’s independence was chosen, deviating from the provisions of the Declaration of Independence, even in that deviation, the legal possibility for Armenia to recognize Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan is unequivocally excluded. Thus, being the foundation of the Constitution of the Republic of Armenia, the Declaration of Independence is a solid legal basis to declare any international treaty signed by Armenia recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan unconstitutional and null. 
2. The cited Almaty Declaration of December 21, 1991, refers to the right to self-determination, and, in fact, is a declaration that stems from the foundational document for the establishment of the CIS, the Agreement of December 8, 1991. This agreement was ratified by the Supreme Council of Armenia on February 18, 1992, with specific reservations regarding Nagorno-Karabakh, whereby Article 5 was supplemented with the phrase ‘the right of peoples to freely self-determine,’ while Article 10 states: ‘The provision of the second paragraph of Article 13 of the Agreement is ‘open to all states of the Soviet Union,’ to be supplemented with the words ‘including former autonomous entities of the USSR that held referenda on independence before the adoption of the declaration on the cessation of the USSR’ and that, based on that, the supreme executive authority of the autonomous entity petitions for membership in the Commonwealth of Independent States.’
3. On July 8, 1992, the Supreme Council of Armenia accepted a decision which, in its second point, states, ‘It is unacceptable for the Republic of Armenia to recognize any international or domestic document which lists the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.’

This means that the Republic of Armenia has categorically and irreversibly excluded any possibility of recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan through its founding document, the Declaration of Independence, while the decisions of the Supreme Council have upheld the right of peoples to freely self-determine and created the legal basis for the possibility of Artsakh's membership in the CIS, while directly deeming it unacceptable to mention any document regarding the status of Artsakh within Azerbaijan. Thus, Armenia may recognize Azerbaijan's territorial integrity, but never including Artsakh or 86,600 km² of territory. In this regard, the current statement by Nikol Pashinyan regarding his willingness to recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan alongside Artsakh is highly unacceptable and concerning.

4. As for the non-legal justifications, considering the unique significance of Artsakh for the security of the Armenian people and Armenian statehood, international relations, identity, and other sectors, many find it even unnecessary to explain why any document or statement recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan is intolerable and unacceptable from Armenia. I will address the details of this direction in other publications.

As a postscript, in addressing Michel's timid and unfounded appeals regarding the rights and security of the people of Artsakh, due to the application of Azerbaijani theses, I am compelled to refer to him as ‘former elected representative of the former inhabitants of the Southern Netherlands.’ However, for the Republic of Armenia, the issues of rights and security of the people of Artsakh cannot bypass the right to self-determination, which in this case remains the axis of other rights and even the security architecture of Artsakh and Armenia.