Hrant Bagratyan, former Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia and leader of the Freedom Party, noted that when Nikol Pashinyan came to power, he accepted a country of 43,700 square kilometers, of which 31,400 square kilometers are currently under Armenian control, and 2,900 square kilometers are Artsakh. According to Hrant Bagratyan, in the 44-day war, in addition to the 42,000 kilometers conquered by Azerbaijan, we voluntarily gave 340 square kilometers.
Cartographer Ruben Galchyan does not agree with the figures presented by Hrant Bagratyan. Touching upon that topic at the press conference held at the Hayeli press club, Ruben Galchyan said that after the 44-day war we did not give territory to Azerbaijan. “Since Azerbaijan was the winning force, violating the Soviet maps, they drew maps that this is their border.
Lake Sev is ours, Ishkhanasar is ours, the territories of Shorzha that they have occupied are ours. It is not theirs. They invaded the sovereign territory of Armenia in those parts.” Responding to the observation that they did not encounter any reaction during that invasion, Ruben Galchyan said, “Because we have an ally who should have protected us, but they did not. They are more in favor of Azerbaijan.” In his opinion, Russia, an ally of Armenia, should pursue the fact that before starting the demarcation, Azerbaijan should leave the territory of Armenia and return to its territory, if not, it considers it pointless to start the process. The cartographer does not know what the Armenian government is doing, but he thinks that the international community should be intensively complaining about the invasion of Armenia by Azerbaijan.
By the way, Ruben Galchyan does not connect the demarcation-delimitation process between Armenia and Azerbaijan with the fate of Artsakh. He insists that the people of Artsakh must decide their own destiny, and only Armenia can support them. But he is sure that if Artsakh is handed over to Azerbaijan, what happened to Nakhichevan will happen, the Armenians were evicted during 50-60 years, not even an Armenian monument was left in Nakhichevan. As for the process of normalization of relations between Turkey and Armenia, the speaker said that one should be careful. He recalled that Armenia has not ratified the Kars-Moscow agreement, by which the Armenian territories were handed over to Turkey. Turkey wants us to ratify it now, but we must be careful and “not do that.”
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Regarding the processes starting with Azerbaijan, in his opinion, Armenia’s demands should be clear: there are no enclaves, and the territories handed over to Azerbaijan illegally should be returned to Armenia. As for the “Zangezur Corridor”, if it becomes a reality, it should be exclusively under the control of Armenia, and not as a corridor, but as a road.
Nelly GRIGORYAN
