VIDEO: Consider Artsakh has already been resolved within Azerbaijan after the document is signed, says Oskenyan

The notion that Baku and Stepanakert will engage in dialogue, etc., is merely formality. This was stated in a video message by former Armenian Foreign Minister Vardan Oskenyan, responding to the Armenian authorities' thesis that there should be a dialogue between Stepanakert and Baku to address the rights and security issues of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh.

"The moment that dialogue begins, after the document is signed, consider that Artsakh has already been resolved within Azerbaijan. And the issue is closed," noted the former foreign minister.

"What Pashinyan is doing seems to him the easiest way to resolve the issue in this situation," Oskenyan stated, commenting on the steps in the negotiations for normalizing relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. According to him, what Pashinyan is doing is unrealistic: "He wants to give something that is not his. He wants to give a territory that has belonged to the people of Artsakh for millennia. There have been Armenians living there. He wants to give a territory that has never, ever been part of independent Azerbaijan."

Oskenyan pointed out that there are over 50 self-determination movements around the world, which are processes that continue, some with a history of 80 to 100 years. The diplomat also noted that within Soviet Azerbaijan, Artsakh had the status of an autonomous region, and this fact should be brought to the negotiating table.