There can’t be Western Azerbaijan in the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at the Yerevan Dialogue international forum.
The prime Minister shared insights on the current state of the Armenia-Azerbaijan peace process.
“We’ve been able to agree on draft of the agreement on the peace and interstate relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. And we finalized document and completed the negotiations on that draft. And Armenia has announced, I have announced personally that I’m ready to sign the document, the Prime Minister said, adding that Azerbaijan is officially linking the signing of the agreement with two issues.
“The first is the dissolution of the OSCE Minsk Group structures. You know that OSCE Minsk Group was created as a platform for negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the conflict. And in general, I should say that the agenda of dissolution of OSCE Minsk Group is acceptable for us and we are ready to go forward. But from the other side, we want to make sure that we, with Azerbaijan, understand the situation similarly. I mean, we want to make sure that the intention of Azerbaijan isn’t to close, let’s say, the conflicting situation on its territory and to export that into the territory of the Republic of Armenia. Why we are saying this? Because you know that unfortunately, in the recent years, Azerbaijan started to call approximately 60% of the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia so-called Western Azerbaijan. And you know our position on that, we said many times that there can’t be Western Azerbaijan in the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia,” PM Pashinyan emphasized.
The Prime Minister said that Armenia proposes to sign the peace agreement and simultaneously a joint application to the OSCE on the dissolution of the Minsk Group structures. “And I think that is a constructive approach and a constructive proposal to have two documents on the table and sign those documents simultaneously in the same place.”
“Another issue that Azerbaijan raises is its claim that the Republic of Armenia Constitution contains territorial claims on Azerbaijan. In general, this is also clear that parties must not have any territorial claims against each other and that is very important precondition for peace. But let’s look at the issue carefully to understand whether there is territorial claims in the Constitution of Republic of Armenia against Azerbaijan. The only institution that can officially declare what the Republic of Armenia Constitution contains and what it does not contain is the Constitutional Court of the Republic of Armenia,” the Prime Minister noted.
He reminded that last year Armenia and Azerbaijan signed regulations on the joint activities of the border commissions of the two countries and the document, where the Almaty Declaration is referred to as a basic principle for the delimitation process, was sent to the Constitutional Court for review.
“According to our Constitutional Court Almaty Declaration is in full compliance with the Constitution of Republic of Armenia which means that there is no territorial claim in the Constitution of Armenia on any neighbor because the Almaty Declaration means that the territory of independent Armenia and that of independent Azerbaijan are identical to the territories of Soviet Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan respectively,” PM Pashinyan stated.
