On November 22, Armenia’s Minister of Foreign Affairs Ararat Mirzoyan had a meeting with the ambassadors of the European Union and EU member states accredited to the Republic of Armenia.
The full text of the Foreign Minister's speech is bellow:
“There are no more Armenians living in Nagorno-Karabakh. This is a result of ethnic cleansing policy by Azerbaijan. This was the final stage of ethnic cleansing policy, after the ten-month long blockade of the region with no food, no medicine, no gas, no electricity, with nothing, with dire humanitarian situation, with humanitarian crisis. And then on September 19 the military attack against the people of Nagorno-Karabakh with targeting the civilian population, targeting the civilian infrastructure. So the people there found themselves in a situation when they just needed to flee to save their lives, to save the lives of their family members.
How we see the continuation of the peace process and the peace treaty itself. I can highlight several principles. First of all, it is the mutual acknowledgement of territorial integrity without any ambiguity, with clear understanding of what territory we mutually recognize. And you know that in Brussels earlier in July President Michel in his statement spoke about concrete square kilometers, the surfaces of the countries. So the intention is to make sure that we understand what we recognize – both Armenia and Azerbaijan.
The second principle is about the delimitation process. So we believe that the delimitation of the borders should take place according to Almaty Declaration and protocol which is a document and we have spoken about this several times. This is a document, in which among other things there are two republics – Azerbaijan and Armenia, not only them, because there were 12 republics of the former Soviet Union, but we speak about Armenia and Azerbaijan. So among other republics Azerbaijan and Armenia, they acknowledged that the former administrative borders existing between Soviet Socialist Republics now, after gaining independence now these borders become interstate international borders. And the second thing according to which the delimitation should take place are the maps – concrete maps, we believe that the most recent, the freshest, the most legitimate maps.
And the third principle is about the connectivity. We are really interested in this unblocking. But the way we see it is the following – all the infrastructures that are going to be reconstructed or if they exist, just be unblocked, it should remain under our sovereignty, should be operated according our national jurisdictions and should also be opened, unblocked according to the principles of equality and reciprocity. When we speak about sovereignty, this also means that the Republic of Armenia will guarantee the safety and security infrastructure, of cargo, of people, of vehicles passing through our territory.
In order to develop this vision, we have come up with the project, we have given a title to this project, you most probably have heard about it – Crossroads of Peace. We believe this project is beneficial not only for Armenia and for Azerbaijan, but also for neighboring countries and for everybody – from East to West,” Mirzoyan stated.
