Those who previously ruled Armenia in have made statements the post-war period that need to be clarified, stated Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan at the National Assembly, presenting the report on the implementation process and the results of the Government program for 2020.
The Prime Minister noted that in reality there is an understanding that the international community is putting pressure on the side, which shows a non-constructive approach in the negotiations to bring it to a constructive field. Pashinyan emphasized that this is just a simple delusion, an attempt to mislead the people.
“At least since 2011, when the Azerbaijani side took a destructive stance, the international community did not persuade Azerbaijan to come to a constructive field, but set a task for the Armenian side to make more concessions in order to bring Azerbaijan to a constructive field. The allegations that there are agreements on the referendum, who should have participated in the referendum, I want to clarify that this is also an attempt to mislead the people. Yes, there was a referendum provision in the negotiation packages, including those discussed after 2015-16.
It was said that the referendum should express the free will of the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh. It seems everything is normal, but there is no emphasis on where the referendum will take place. The referendum is not described. This is a fundamentally important issue. Because the issue of the status of any territory internationally considered part of the territory of Azerbaijan, in accordance with its Constitution and logics, can be set only by a referendum to be held in the whole territory of Azerbaijan. This was Azerbaijan’s position in the negotiations. When the question arose as to how we would interpret this provision, including whether the Co-Chairs had been asked such a question, the answer was that the comment on which both Armenia and Azerbaijan would agree was acceptable.
The next question is what does the whole population of Nagorno-Karabakh mean? According to Azerbaijan, this means internally displaced persons, their family members, who were born after that. According to the available data, about 40,000 Azerbaijanis left the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region due to well-known events in the context of the first Artsakh war. The next question is what specific question will be put to the referendum, who will formulate that question. There were no clear answers to this question either,” said the Prime Minister.
