Lately, at the “Post Scriptum” press club, Aravot.am asked the political scientist Ara Papian to express his opinion about the “peace program” of the “Congress-PPA” alliance election campaign which is based on the concession option for the Karabakh conflict settlement. Ara Papian first reminded that the “Kazan document” is disclosed and the “Madrid principles” are based on it”. “By the Kazan document to which Serzh Sargsyan agreed we are going to cede five regions for the first phase, Karvachar and Lachin, with the exception for the Lachin corridor,” said Ara Papian.
After that, as mentioned by the expert, there will be a return of Azerbaijani refugees to the Nagorno-Karabakh territory, incidentally, according to the Azerbaijani side, their number amounts to 600 thousand, in other words, the Azeris form the majority. “After that, I do not think that the issue will get to the referendum because if the latter takes place, the clashes and war will become inevitable. Obviously, after ceding seven regions which were occupied by the Armenian side as a security zone, no security guarantees are added. Many people say that they will not stay in the villages which in this case become a front line. Thus, we endanger not only Artsakh but the Syunik population,” noted Ara Papian.
In his estimation, it is not possible to achieve peace by handing over territories, “They are using the word peace trying to gain votes, and are trying to send a message to Russia, saying, help us to come to power and we will do what we want. This is a manipulating of the Artsakh issue in the election phase.” As described by Ara Papian, there is no guarantee even in the case of signing a peace agreement indicated by the ANC that Azerbaijan will not attack because this state wants not only Artsakh but also Yerevan. We were also curious to know whether Tigran the Great is a land surrender, as the candidate of the “Congress-PPA” indicated. The political scientist noted that Tigran the Great had conquered the lands of other countries and preserved Armenia by refusing them.
