The RA second president Robert Kocharyan, in an interview with “Liberty” RFE/RL, in addition to a number of economic and political questions, spoke also about the Karabakh problem, particularly on the issue of handover of lands, which the first Human Rights Defender Larisa Alaverdyan commented in an interview with Aravot.am as follows: “I regret that over 24 years I have expressed an opinion on various occasions, which was not heard. I am talking about the policy which is conducted starting from the first president, continued by the second one and, we hope, ended by the third one, the wrongest way of solving the conflict is chosen. In other words, having no clue that it is possible to be political, legal, historical, or to make it clear by other basis that lands that do not belong to Azerbaijan were once annexed to it, and Artsakh and in broad sense, Armenia have the right to these lands, which are now liberated and constitute only a part of the lands that were illegally and in contrary to the international law were once annexed to Soviet Azerbaijan.” The human rights defender said that the second president clearly speaks about what the matters that the team of the current president wants to hide, in particular, the fact that the documents contain the thesis of under what circumstances the lands not belonging to Azerbaijan were agreed by at least one of the Armenian sides on the annexation of these territories to modern Azerbaijan.
“Simply, the first president differed from the first president whose team was also denying that this path begun just from them was a political rough mistake, of which the second president had not given up about which he is talking, and the second president and his team deny this simple and very sad fact. The current authorities do not admit this wrong path begun by them and earlier of them, they do not agree or do not confess that this path is wrong, on the contrary, they do everything that to cast the fault on some concocted forces or hypotheses,” – noted Mrs. Alaverdyan. In her words, at various times, be it in Key West or Kazan, the grounds of not signing the documents by Azerbaijan was the fact that Azerbaijan considers itself annexation not only Karabakh with the territories enshrined by its constitution but also some part of the Republic of Armenia, which is clearly seen on the map that Azerbaijan once had presented to the League of Nations in 1919 as a territory of the Republic of Azerbaijan, from Batumi up to Baku. “This map clearly shows that Azerbaijan has territorial ambitions towards all the countries surrounding Azerbaijan: Georgia, Turkey, Russia and even Iran with marine section (it is necessary to remind that the League of Nations had rejected all these ambitions). Hence, we need to clearly understand that from the viewpoint of Azerbaijan, the territory of Armenia should be composed of from Yerevan up to half of the Sevan, approximately one triangle. This is the reason that Azerbaijan keeps rejecting any of the options, in other words, it demands everything and all at once,” – noted Larisa Alaverdyan. In her words, Azerbaijan’s problem as of today is primarily connected to the territory, which was recognized by the League of Nations as controversial and territories belonging to Armenia by the logic of the international law because, at that time, the dispute was clearly between Armenia and Azerbaijan.
Mrs. Alaverdyan opines that during the tenure of all three presidents, the condition of coming to power and staying has been the same by the external forces, Armenia agrees to such stepping back and stance contradicting the interests of all peoples living in the region: “The national liberation struggle together with Artsakh Armenians and all Armenians is an example of being under the yoke of the Azerbaijani political nationalist elite for other peoples who are living on their historic lands and do not agree to assimilate and die out as such and all be called an Azerbaijani or Turk.”
Anush MATEVOSYAN
