During an election campaign in Kapan, the acting Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan spoke about foreign policy. “The international community was telling us in 2018 that we were the ones who said in the early 2000s via Robert Kocharyan’s foreign minister Vartan Oskanian that what we call the ‘safety zone’ within the jurisdiction of Artsakh according to Artsakh’s Constitution consisted of occupied territories that must be returned. We said, but what about Artsakh’s status.
They said that we were the ones who voted in favor of the European Safety Charter in Istanbul in 1999, where we noted and voted in favor of the Artsakh issue being resolved within the framework of Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. What status? Moreover, you deprived Nagorno-Karabakh of the status of a negotiating party by the decision of the Armenian leader in 1998, and after that, you stated that the Artsakh issue must be resolved within the logic of exchanging territories. You have agreed to make Meghri part of the negotiating content, and Meghri should be given to Azerbaijan within 60 days, and the Shushi region and Lachin should be given to Armenia within 60 days. In other words, the question is what self-determination are you talking about? What right to self-determination are you talking about?”
Pashinyan, assuring that Kocharyan wanted to hand Meghri over, referred to the late Karen Demirchyan’s wife, Rima Demirchyan, the current Minister of Defense Vagharshak Harutyunyan, and Vazgen Sargsyan’s brother Aram Sargsyan. “Vazgen Sargsyan spoke about that. He visited Meghri in August of 1999, and he made the following statement: Meghri is not a geographical area, it is not a handful of our homeland. And when you give Meghri to a stranger, you close the door of your house on yourself. I mean, Meghri is more important than anything else. Meghri with its stones makes the powerful of the world come to the doors of this country.
And to give Meghri away today, even to get a sea route in exchange, is a lie, a big world lie. First of all, they will not give it away. There are a thousand and one ways not to give it away. Karabakh is proof that they do not take land with a pen. I warn you, Meghri will one day explode right in the center of Yerevan.” Pashinyan stressed that this is Vazgen Sargsyan’s testimony, and his government’s policy in Syunik and Meghri will be exactly what Vazgen Sargsyan said.
Read also
Hripsime Jebejyan
