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Pashinyan seeks to change negotiations format

23 October 2019 18:25 (UTC+04:00)
Pashinyan seeks to change negotiations format

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Throughout the years of the negotiation process over Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, Azerbaijan has formed a unified approach that is based on international law. Despite Yerevan’s numerous attempts to change negotiations format, Baku firmly adheres to its strong position.

Azerbaijan’s approach is clear. Azerbaijan does not recognize the illegal regime established in its occupied Nagorno-Karabakh region and wants the resolution of the conflict within its territorial integrity. Negotiations with Yerevan will be conducted until the Armenian forces are withdrawn from the occupied territories in line with the United Nations Security Council’s relevant resolutions.

Armenia, on the other hand, has attempted to change the format of negotiations after Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan came to power in 2018. In the past one year, Yerevan has sought to make the separatist regime in the Nagorno-Karabakh a party in the negotiations process, which is unacceptable for Baku and counterproductive in the negotiations process.

Pashinyan has stated that he was not elected by the so-called "Nagorno-Karabakh people," respectively, he was not titled to negotiate on their behalf with Baku. However, Azerbaijan reiterated firmly that Pashinyan’s attempts are aimed at changing the format of the negotiation.

Pashinyan’s recent provocative statement made in August 5, compounded Baku’s concerns that Yerevan seeks to change the format of negotiations. Thus, speaking in occupied Khankendi, Pashinyan had said that “Nagorno-Karabakh is Armenia” and that this region must be annexed to Armenia. Earlier, in March, Armenian Defence Minister Tonoyan had threatened to occupy more Azerbaijani lands in case war resumed between the two countries.

The current Armenian government realizes that Yerevan is recognized as an occupying country by the international community. Moreover, Aliyev’s determined diplomacy confuses Pashinyan and forces him to make fatal mistakes for the occupying country.

On October 15, another scandal erupted in Armenia following Pashinyan’s incompetency – yet another time. Receiving the so-called head of Nagorno-Karabakh Bako Sahakyan in Yerevan, Pashinyan addressed him as: “Dear Mr. President, dear Marzpet.”

The thing is - Marzpet is translated from Armenian as “the post of the head of the region”. That is, Pashinyan, following the logic of his August statement, humiliated Sahakyan, and also exposed the long-standing Armenian myth that supposedly Nagorno-Karabakh is an "independent state", and Armenia acts as a "guarantor of its security."

With this fatal mistake, Pashinyan reduced to zero the long-standing efforts of Armenia to present the separatists as a party to the conflict. His political opponents from the “Karabakh clan” immediately took advantage of this.

By his appeal to Sahakyan, Armenian PM once again proved the correctness of Baku’s approach to the conflict resolution.

Calling Sahakyan the marzpet, Pashinyan therefore agrees that there should not be any Nagorno-Karabakh authorities at the negotiation table. Moreover, if “Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Armenia”, then Pashinyan actually recognizes that it was Armenia that carried out aggression against Azerbaijan, as stated by Baku.

In addition, Pashinyan also destroyed the Armenian legend that, supposedly, there were “fair elections” in occupied Nagorno-Karabakh, in which the “president” was “elected”. In fact, Armenians invited paid "observers", which gave positive evaluations of the elections.

However, Pashinyan himself demonstrated to the whole world that there were no "elections" in Nagorno-Karabakh and there is no “statehood” of Nagorno-Karabakh, as well as the elected authorities, there is only person appointed by Yerevan.

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Abdul Kerimkhanov is AzerNews’ staff journalist, follow him on Twitter: @AbdulKerim94

Follow us on Twitter @AzerNewsAz

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