Cartographer Shahen Shahinyan explains the eight villages pointed out by the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, which, according to Aliyev, RA occupied. According to our interlocutor, a small Azerbaijani settlement was located in Tigranashen, the others in the Tavush Region.
“When they talk about the eight villages, it should be understood that they have specific demands regarding some parts adjacent to the Tavush Region that are currently under our control. For example, Verin Voskepar, which they consider their territory, was not a main settlement but was a place of temporary herdsmen’s resistance.
The others are located in the border zone of Tavush. In the 90s, when there were battles between the Armenian-Azerbaijani forces, there were border shifts; two of their villages appeared in the neutral zone, and two came under Armenian control and were not inhabited. But interestingly, at the same time, no one raises the issue of the Armenian territories that Azerbaijan seized, the same Artsvashen, which is a little inferior in its area to the three Azerbaijani enclaves taken together. In the territories occupied by Azerbaijan in the last three years: Upper Shorzha, Jermuk, Mets Ishkhanasar, and Inner Hand, no one remembers about them. They also need to remember that some areas in the Nakhichevan area were once neutral, but now Azerbaijan has occupied them, and we are talking about relatively large areas.
Let’s now look at the territories of Armenia and Azerbaijan, which, according to the maps of the 70s, should be exchanged. Azerbaijan currently has two or three times more territory captured from Armenia than Armenia has Azerbaijani territories under its control.
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At the very least, it’s not fair to demand from a side with a tiny part under its control but instead not talk about the territories they must give back. The international mechanism says: let’s show a neighborly step; you have large areas captured from Armenia, return some of them, showing that you are ready for mutually agreed actions, but we see that starting from 2020, Azerbaijan is pursuing a unilateral aggressive policy and that is aimed at the desire for another invasion.”
According to Shahinyan, the surfaces related to the territorial integrity of Armenia during the last announcement in Granada correspond to the surfaces present in the maps of the last period of the existence of the Soviet Union; they are the maps of the 1970s.
“If these maps and the surfaces reflected in them are taken as a basis, it turns out that the enclaves are included in Azerbaijan, Artsvashen in RA. 2021-22 our territories occupied by Azerbaijan are also included in the maps of those years; that is, if it is declared that these surfaces should be preserved, then these territories should be returned. There’s just a lot of nuance there. The RA-Azerbaijani border passes through mountains and hills. Without physically occupying the territory, Azerbaijan can control quite large parts of RA. For example, our border passes through the great peak of Ishkhanasar; if the peak of Ishkhanasar is under their control, then they control a rather large area in our depth; if it is under our control, then we control it.”
Arpine SIMONYAN
