During the Parliament-Government question-and-answer session, Natioonal Assembly’s ‘Civil Contract’ faction deputy Alkhas Ghazaryan asked Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan what was the reason for the non-holding of the meeting between EU Council President Charles Michel, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev at the end of October.
“Yes, such a meeting was planned, but now the statement and the fact is that it will not take place in October, and I guess the reason is that the President of Azerbaijan has not confirmed his participation in that meeting, but there are working details that we will discuss in the future. We will try to get clarifications from our EU partners and understand what to do next. Of course, we also have answers to some questions, but I would also not like to rush to make an assessment about all of them. I can say that we, as before, expressed our willingness to participate in that meeting.
Besides, I want to draw your attention to the fact that in the statement of the President of the EU Council of July 15, 2023, which refers to the trilateral meeting in which the President of the EU Council, the President of Azerbaijan and I took part, there are three important principles, based on which we agreed that the peace process should take place and peace should be concluded,” said Nikol Pashinyan.
He reminded that the first principle is to mutually recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia and Azerbaijan. “Specific territorial dimensions have been mentioned, which, in fact, are the recording of the assessment of the territories," he said.
The second, which, according to the Prime Minister, is more specific, is the implementation of border delimitation based on the Alma-Ata declaration. "With the declaration of Alma-Ata, let me remind you that the 12 republics of the USSR have recorded that the existing administrative borders between them become state borders," said Nikol Pashinyan.
The third principle is that the opening of regional communications should take place on the basis of countries' sovereignty, jurisdiction, reciprocity and equality. “We are ready to move forward in the peace process and nothing has changed in our previous statements about this,” the Prime Minister emphasized.
Referring to the prospects of the negotiations, Pashinyan noted. “Based on those three principles, we need to move forward and localize them on the ground. We are, of course, committed to the peace agenda, and I hope that the process will continue and reach its logical conclusion. Negotiations are important, and we will do everything to advance the negotiation process."
