The citizens of the Republic of Artsakh are deprived of natural gas supply for already three days, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Cabinet meeting. He said that the supply was cut off as a result of Azerbaijan’s intervention.
“As you know, on March 7 the pipeline supplying gas to Artsakh was blown up in Azerbaijani-controlled territory. Using the most various pretexts, Azerbaijan was not allowing repair works and eventually Azerbaijan itself repaired it. As a result, the information we have indicates that Azerbaijan installed a valve on the pipeline.
On March 18, 11 days later, after restoring the gas supply to Artsakh for 4 days Azerbaijan simply closed the valve without any explosions on March 21, thus proving that it was behind the March 7 explosion,” the PM said.
PM Pashinyan highlighted the fact that both cases of the supply cut-off happened in unique circumstances.
“On March 7, unprecedented amount of snowfalls in the last 30 years happened in Artsakh and unprecedented drop in air temperatures were recorded. New record snowfalls and freezing cold was recorded on March 21 and in some places the snowfalls reached one and a half meters, one meter in capital Stepanakert, and the temperature reached minus eight degrees. And in these conditions Artsakh was intentionally deprived by Azerbaijan from the vitally significant natural gas supplies for heating apartments, kindergartens, schools and hospitals,” PM Pashinyan said.
He emphasized that this is enough to understand that as a result of Azerbaijan’s actions Artsakh is on the verge of a humanitarian disaster.
Pashinyan said he has no doubts that the heroic people of Artsakh will overcome this trial as well.
“But with this realization I must also say for the record that with its actions Azerbaijan is also rendering a service to the people of Artsakh, because this episode concerning the gas pipeline is a very precise and brief description of the Artsakh conflict for the international community. With this episode, the international community can understand the essence of the Karabakh conflict without reading hundreds of pages and studying the nuances of history.
This unequivocally showcases Azerbaijan’s policy towards the Armenians of Artsakh: That is – to make their life in their own homeland impossible. For one and a half years now, Azerbaijan is boasting of its so-called glorious victory in the 2020 44-day war, but everything shows that the fact that after so much suffering and deprivations, today, right now over 117,000 Armenians live in Artsakh, Azerbaijan considers this fact its biggest defeat and has set an objective to complete its policy of ethnic cleansing in Artsakh,” PM Pashinyan said.
In this context, Pashinyan said the Azerbaijani foreign ministry’s latest statement is very symbolic and speaks volumes, because Baku said in this statement that the Artsakh gas supply issue is its internal affair.
“If we interpret this from diplomatic language, this means that they are saying – ‘international community, don’t look this way and let us complete our policy of getting rid of Armenians by genocidal policy and ethnic cleansing in Artsakh under the pretext of so-called anti-terror actions or simply without obstructions, quietly’. No such thing can happen, and the diplomatic service of Armenia, other government officials, political forces, media, NGOs and individuals should in detail and widely present to the international community through social media everything that happened in Artsakh in the past 15 days,” Pashinyan said.
The policy adopted by Armenia on opening an era of peaceful development for the region has no alternative, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said, stating that although many react to the current gas problem in Artsakh by reminding and criticizing the policy of opening a peaceful development era for the country and the region.
“Quite the contrary, with its actions, numerous provocations Azerbaijan is trying to divert us from our agenda of peace, to deligitimize that agenda in order to implement its policy of provoking new escalations, new wars in the region. But we must not give in to these and such kind of provocations. I have stated that for implementing the peace agenda we need firm nerves and we must not deviate from our declared strategy in any way. Strategy is a strategy that should guide us in all situations”, the PM said.
He reminded that after the first explosion of the gas pipeline, on March 10, a 5-point proposal on the settlement of the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan was handed over to Armenia.
“We have responded to these proposals in writing very quickly, on March 14, and have applied to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chair countries, requesting to assist in organizing the peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And on March 21, 2022, the Foreign Minister of Armenia voiced Armenia’s overall assessment to the proposals presented by Azerbaijan, and that assessment is the following:
“There is nothing unacceptable for us in the proposals submitted by Azerbaijan. It’s another thing that these proposals do not address all issues on he Armenia-Azerbaijan comprehensive peace agenda. With our response, submitted to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairmanship, we have amended that agenda and thus, we are ready for the launch of peace talks on this base”.
On the day this position was announced, in the evening, Azerbaijan closes the pipeline supplying gas to Artsakh. Pay attention please, Armenia announces that the proposals presented by Azerbaijan are acceptable for Armenia, but Azerbaijan closes the gas pipeline, and this is the greatest proof that Azerbaijan’s policy is to divert us from the peace agenda”, Pashinyan said.
Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan addressed what he described as the “radical opposition’s” criticism claiming that his administration has agreed to accept the principle of territorial integrity as the principle of normalization of relations.
Pashinyan said at the Cabinet meeting that this criticism is “more than strange.”
PM Pashinyan reminded a 1999 statement by then-President Robert Kocharyan, who said “If we speak about territorial integrity in general, we shouldn’t say that we oppose it. We also have territory, and we too consider that this territory requires adherence to such principle”. Pashinyan said Kocharyan made this statement after returning to Yerevan in 1999 from the OSCE Istanbul summit where he had voted in favor of the security charter in Europe, which defends territorial integrity.
“After him, Serzh Sargsyan also negotiated over the NK conflict settlement for many years, accepting the principle of territorial integrity, among others, as a fundamental principle for resolution. Therefore, speculations are inappropriate here. We believe that the Nagorno Karabakh has never been a territorial conflict and isn’t such now as well, it is an issue of rights and we will consistently defend all rights of the Armenians of Artsakh, also by not ignoring the rights of other nations, because, as Serzh Sargsyan once rightfully said in a latest interview – ‘we are not fascists’”, Pashinyan said.
The situation around the world and in the region is tense and Armenia considers itself responsible to de-escalate this tension and find fundamental solutions, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Cabinet meeting.
“In this regard, indeed, we think that the peace talks between Armenia and Azerbaijan must be launched as soon as possible. Moreover, the border demarcation and delimitation works must be accelerated parallel to the measures for increasing the level of security and stability at the border. You know certainly that we have made the proposal of reciprocal withdrawal of troops on the border, considering the de jure borderline confirmed between Armenia and Azerbaijan during Soviet times as an indicative for pulling back,” the PM said.
Pashinyan added that in addition to the proposal of the general withdrawal, Armenia also proposed local withdrawals, and is still awaiting a response from Azerbaijan.
“Particularly, in the Yeraskh section we proposed them to pull back several positions from our territory, and in turn we will pull back several positions from their territory, and thus we will solve the issue of one of the most fierce locations of the past one and a half year. We are waiting for a response from Azerbaijan,” the PM said.
However, PM Pashinyan said that after the latest developments it is unclear whether or not Azerbaijan truly wants the opening of regional connections.
“It’s not very clear for us whether Azerbaijan wants the opening of regional connections or not. If it does, our proposals are still in force and we are ready to start implementing them at any moment, literally at any moment,” Pashinyan said, reminding that he has numerously talked about the Armenian Crossroad project.
