Issue of Russian peacekeeping contingent to be solved only with Azerbaijan, Russian President says
The legal status of Russian peacekeepers was based solely on the 2020 statement and their mission was solely to maintain the ceasefire," Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a plenary session at the 20th annual meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club, Azernews reported.
He added that after the recent events, the situation has changed and now the issue of the Russian peacekeeping contingent will be solved only with Azerbaijan.
He noted that Azerbaijan did not see the need to sign an additional agreement on the status of peacekeepers.
"Azerbaijan thought there was no need for it, but signing this agreement without Azerbaijan is meaningless. The mission of the Russian peacekeepers was to observe the ceasefire. The peacekeepers had no other rights there," the Russian president said.
Putin added that after Armenia recognized Garabagh as part of Azerbaijan, the country's President Ilham Aliyev told him that the issue of peacekeepers there would now be resolved only bilaterally, as they were exclusively on Azerbaijani territory.
Russian President Vladimir Putin also said at the plenary session as part of the 20th Annual Meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club that Baku's establishing constitutional order in Garabagh was a matter of time after Armenia recognized in Prague and then in Brussels that Garabagh is a part of Azerbaijan,
“When and in what way Azerbaijan would establish constitutional order in Garabagh was only a matter of time. When Garabagh declared its independence, no one recognized this independence, not even Armenia, which, frankly speaking, is strange to me. They didn't recognize the independence of Garabagh. In Prague, Armenia recognized that Garabagh belongs to Azerbaijan, and then repeated the same thing a second time at a similar meeting in Brussels in early 2023. I am confident that now that all issues on Azerbaijan’s part have been resolved to restore territorial integrity, the president of Azerbaijan will take up humanitarian issues,” the Russian President said.
Putin has expressed the hope that Baku will proceed from humanistic considerations in relation to the former “leaders” of Garabagh.
Earlier, commenting on the situation with the arrest of Ruben Vardanyan, the Russian leader noted that he himself had renounced Russian citizenship.
The so-called “leaders” of the quasi-formation Arkady Ghukasyan, Bako Sahakyan, and David Ishkhanyan, along with Arayik Harutyunyan and Ruben Vardanyan, were arrested. Such a preventive measure was chosen in their relation as part of the investigation of criminal cases against the separatists.
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