Many say we are handing over 4 villages to Azerbaijan, I say we are taking 4 villages from Azerbaijan: Pashinyan

On October 6, 2022, we agreed with Azerbaijan to recognize each other's territorial integrity and sovereignty based on the Alma-Ata Declaration, and that the Alma-Ata Declaration should be the basis for the delimitation process. This was stated by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in an interview with Public Television on May 1, addressing claims that the delimitation is being carried out under Azerbaijan's pressure, starting from areas where we are expected to concede land.

“It is now very important that we also practically demonstrate our commitment to this process, and of course, it is important that Azerbaijan demonstrates it as well. You know that even before this process, the fact of the 4 villages has been used by Azerbaijan as a negotiating tool and argument. Many say we are handing over four villages to Azerbaijan, but I say we are taking 4 villages from Azerbaijan as an argument to internationalize aggressive policies against Armenia, legitimizing them, with or without quotation marks. I want us to understand this nuance correctly. Moreover, this issue cannot be viewed in isolation from the events and experiences of 2020, because I, as a person and official responsible for all of this, want to emphasize that as well. It is clear to me, I have not forgotten the criticisms that arose after the 44-day war in 2020.

I mean the following: they said there was a lot of criticism that the government should have taken steps to prevent the war. Was there actually an option to prevent the war? I said yes, there was an option to prevent the war, for that, we should have agreed as the Armenian side to return the 7 regions to Azerbaijan, agree on the resolution of the current status of Nagorno-Karabakh, agree that Nagorno-Karabakh is a unit with an Armenian-Azerbaijani population, agree that Nagorno-Karabakh is under Armenian-Azerbaijani governance, meaning that the government consists not only of Armenians but also of Azerbaijanis, and they jointly govern, starting from the parliamentary level, if, of course, there was agreement on the existence of the Parliament and so on.

And at that time, people said, you know what, we did not have that much information, you had that information, you should make decisions based on the information because it was your job, it was your responsibility for all of this. Of course, I have presented arguments and counterarguments, including at the commission investigating the circumstances of the 44-day war, but I have taken all those messages into account, including the opposition's messages and those from the public. Now based on all the information I have, which I want to say does not contain many top-secret things, because in the modern world, information is open; it’s another matter what order and picture that information is arranged on the desk of the official who works daily with all this. And we make these decisions.

But I also want to say the following: I want to record my conviction that a very important cornerstone is being laid for the development of the sovereignty and independence of the Republic of Armenia, and I think this is a very important process, a very important event. I do not want to say anything hyperbolic, but this is a cornerstone for the independence, sovereignty, security, and further development of Armenia, as well as for the long-term existence of our state,” said Pashinyan.

Regarding the possibility that Azerbaijan might simply refuse to continue the process with the same principles after resolving the issue of the 4 villages, Pashinyan responded, “The non-resolution of the issue of the 4 villages will give Azerbaijan more opportunity to do so than the resolution of the 4 village issue. Moreover, I want to remind you that when we say 4 villages, we are talking about villages that have never been part of Armenia's Tavush region. We did not have such settlements, and based on the logic of the Alma-Ata Declaration, they were part of Soviet Azerbaijan. And here is your answer to the question: the non-resolution of this issue will give Azerbaijan a greater opportunity to evade that formula and those arrangements than the non-implementation of the delimitation process in this 4 village segment.