And they are waiting for a political assessment from the CSTO
“Let me not answer this question because today, the prime minister will meet with the president of that country. It can be said that this is a real negotiation process. These are just the first steps. I don’t want to make a statement now, so that later they will say, look, they said something like that,” Armenian NA Speaker Alen Simonyan said, referring to the Pashinyan-Erdogan meeting to be held in Prague on October 6. “Let’s be careful on both sides. We are all beneficiaries of this process.
Let’s not do something that will spoil the existing situation,” added Alen Simonyan. In response to the observation that on September 13, the day of Azerbaijan’s attack, Nikol Pashinyan announced that there was no hope and expectation regarding the peace treaty, so what has changed now that Pashinyan claimed yesterday that he sees room for progress in the negotiations, Alen Simonyan said: “Considering who is on the other side of that peace agreement, until that agreement is signed, I personally don’t have any hope because I have very little trust in our neighbors. Their actions caused a lack of trust to form.”
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Alen Simonyan added: “We see a way we can go. Will it work or not…you see that international partners are involved, in particular, there will be a meeting with the participation of Macron. Seventeen prisoners were returned with US support. Here we see another possibility that today’s meeting took place through that pipe. The highest representatives of the Armenian government, the Prime Minister, say that the Armenian 29,800 sq/m is not a matter of discussion. It is a red line for us.”
Alen Simonyan mentioned that he considers it realistic to negotiate now. “Now we see that even Azerbaijan is making statements about optimism. Let’s not say for a long time where the optimism comes from. Let me mention again that we will not leave Artsakh alone. The territory and sovereignty of the Republic of Armenia are unexamined red lines. Rumors that the peace treaty negotiations are in exchange for something have no basis and cannot have any.
In response to the question about if any document will be discussed in Prague and if there is a text, Simonyan answered: “There is none, because this is a new format: the president of the EU, the president of France and the heads of both countries. We have more expectations from this format. Let’s record today that we have a higher format state. If at that time it was at the level of co-chairmanship of the OSCE Minsk Group, today Russia and France are involved at the level of the president, and the US at the level of the secretary of state. If it brings a document, then that mandate is higher. Beyond the border of Armenia, which is a member of the CSTO, there should not be soldiers from other countries. Therefore, it is only one thing for me: will there be jealousy or not? For me, the territorial integrity of Armenia is important. Yes, it is important to make CSTO work. We are waiting for a political assessment, but we will not wait for something to happen on one side. We don’t have time and space to wait. How long we waited is enough.” Journalists were also interested in what is the guarantee that Azerbaijan will stop firing after signing a peace treaty, Alen Simonyan answered: “All countries always have that fear. In the end, we need to define what Armenia is. For one it is historical Armenia, for the other it is the piece of the neighbor, so we must fix the Armenia that we have. We should reserve two for the countries that are a threat to us. There is no other option. Now Armenia cannot go to war with Turkey or NATO with its military potential. It was different in the ‘90s. According to you, would an Armenia of 3 million people be able to fight with Turkey, which has the second largest army in NATO? Shall we bring Turkey to the day when it has no economy?” According to Alen Simonyan, the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from the territory of Armenia and the return of Armenian prisoners of war should precede the signing of the peace treaty itself, as a step of trust, which will really lay the foundation for the relations between the two countries.
Luiza Sukiasyan
