Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said on March 16 that the people of Nagorno Karabakh are facing the threat of ethnic cleansing and genocide and the existence of the Defense Army is justified but it isn’t the only mechanism for preventing genocide.
He said the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno Karabakh is also such a mechanism.
Pashinyan cited the 18 November 2020 Russian parliament’s decision on authorizing Russian President Vladimir Putin to deploy a peacekeeping contingent into Nagorno Karabakh.
Putin mentioned several goals in his letter to the Russian parliament seeking approval.
In the letter, Putin told the Russian parliament that he made the decision to send peacekeepers in order to preserve the ceasefire agreement between the Armenian and Azerbaijani sides, to avoid mass casualties of the civilian population of Nagorno Karabakh and significant damage to civilian structures.
“Thus, we can say that the Russian Federation has officially recorded the possibility of mass murder of the civilian population of Nagorno-Karabakh and assumed the role of guarantor of the safety of the NK people and civil infrastructures.
I’ve said this previously and I want to repeat this, we hope that Russia will fulfill this function entirely, but if our friend and ally Russia, due to some objective reason, is unable to implement this function, then I believe Russia itself ought to apply to the UN Security Council and warn about the threat of mass killings of the civilian population in Nagorno Karabakh and destruction of civilian infrastructures, and the need for additional international mechanisms for not allowing this. Moreover, I don’t have any presumption about the activities of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in Nagorno Karabakh. But the sequence of events of the past two years, for example the occupation of Khtsaberd, Hin Tagher, the events in Parukh, the illegal blockade of Lachin Corridor, the killings of police officers and civilians, the regular ceasefire violations and the actions aimed at terrorizing the civilian population are worrying,” the PM said at the Cabinet meeting.
At the same time, the Armenian PM attached importance to the “special role” of the Russian peacekeeping contingent in the fact that the humanitarian crisis in Nagorno Karabakh resulting from the illegal blockade of Lachin Corridor since 12 December 2022 didn’t turn into a humanitarian catastrophe. “I’d like to express gratitude for the efforts aimed at this goal,” the PM said.
