Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan visited the German Council on Foreign Relations in Berlin, where he had a meeting with representatives of political, social and expert circles, participated in the discussion "Security and Stability in the South Caucasus. Armenia's Perspective".
The Prime Minister first delivered a speech, where he particularly said,
"Recently president Aliyev of Azerbaijan declared that Lachin corridor is open for those Armenians who want to leave Karabakh. That means – that Lachin corridor is closed for those Armenians who live in Nagorno Karabakh.
Dear participants,
Despite the above-mentioned, the Government of Armenia has shown the political will and has been taking decisive steps to open a new era of peace and stability in the South Caucasus and has been engaged constructively in the Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiations.
The Armenia-Azerbaijan negotiation process is going on in the following three main tracks: Agreement on the normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, unblocking of transport communications and economic links in the region and border demarcation and security.
Armenia agreed to separate from the Armenia-Azerbaijan process the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, with the logic that a mechanism of discussions between Stepanakert and Baku will be formed. It is essential for Armenia to establish a guarantee mechanism addressing the issues of security and rights of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh which will have international visibility and involvement.
Without going into the details, I would like to mention that the key humanitarian issues, such as the return of all the Armenian prisoners of war (POWs), and the access of International organizations to Nagorno-Karabakh, continue to remain unresolved and are the issues of our utmost concern. We strongly condemn the continuous violations of the Geneva Convention on POWs by Azerbaijan as at least 33 Armenian POWs have been sentenced to different terms of imprisonment through completely trumped-up charges. The refusal of Azerbaijan to repatriate Armenian prisoners of war is another violation by Azerbaijan of point 8 of trilateral statement of 9th November of 2020."