Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan issued a clarification on his December 24 online briefing on Facebook, confessing that he was puzzled by some of the comments.
According to Pashinyan, when answering questions, he spoke in particular about the content of negotiations formed before he became prime minister in 2018, so he could not have had any influence in shaping them.
The prime minister refuted Serzh Sargsyan's statement at the RPA convention that the content of the negotiations they left behind guaranteed that Nagorno-Karabakh was Armenian. "I denied this because the right of Azerbaijanis living in the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to participate in the decision on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh as residents of Nagorno-Karabakh was registered with this content of the negotiations. Consequently, if they are residents of Nagorno-Karabakh according to the content of the negotiations, they should have been residents of Nagorno-Karabakh, and before the 2018 revolution, the Armenian side never objected to such content of the negotiations. And if we consider that the referendum on the final status of Nagorno-Karabakh, according to the content of the negotiations formed before I became Prime Minister, could take place 100 years later, we can predict what changes in the demographic plan will. in Artsakh under these conditions, "- said the Prime Minister.
Regarding the status of Nagorno-Karabakh before a possible referendum on status, according to the head of the government, that in 2016 the mediators presented three negotiating packages (one before the April war, two after), where, unlike the Kazan document of 2011, the proposal "Nagorno-Karabakh gets interim status" was absent. The third of the three packages, presented in August 2016, contained a provision that a decision on the legal and practical arrangements for organizing life in Nagorno-Karabakh would be made by the UN Security Council in consultation with the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs, Azerbaijan, Armenia and the current OSCE chair. "I considered it a disaster in the negotiation process, because obviously the UN Security Council will make all decisions according to the logic of its own resolutions on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, where Nagorno-Karabakh was recognized as part of Azerbaijan," Pashinyan said.
He said that even before the change of power in 2018, with the then existing content of negotiations and realities, Artsakh lost both theoretical and practical possibilities of not being part of Azerbaijan.
"When I became prime minister, I didn't accept it, but I fought against it. This is also the reason why the war started," Nikol Pashinyan admitted, adding, "Today people say that I should not negotiate on behalf of Nagorno-Karabakh, the same people have criticized me since 2018 for saying that I do not have a mandate to negotiate on behalf of Nagorno-Karabakh."
According to the Prime Minister, he understands that many respected people are now protesting against the content of the negotiations, which is the cause and consequence of the 2016 war. At that time, they either did not know or had no right to complain. I also complain about this content and have done my best to neutralize it. But I am sorry, I cannot hide the truth," Nikol Pashinyan concluded.
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