Armenian premier deceiving Armenian people - opposition MP

ArmInfo.Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has once again insidiously tried to mislead  the Armenian people by claiming that allegedly "since 1994, that is, after the ceasefire, the negotiation process concerned the return of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan."

Thus, Artur Khachatryan, a member of the National Assembly from the opposition faction "Armenia,"  commented on Pashinyan's latest statement that allegedly since 1994 negotiations had been underway to transfer the NKR to Azerbaijan.

In this regard, Khachatryan recalled that Pashinyan, back on January  25, 2020, during his "big press conference" in Kapan, referred to a  document presented to the parties to the conflict in January 2018 and  commonly referred to as the "Krakow draft." Khachatryan explained  that according to this document, "the determination of the final  legal status of Nagorno-Karabakh must be carried out by holding a  general referendum, which is a free expression of the will of the  entire population of Artsvakh under the auspices of the UN or OSCE  within an agreed time frame. The vote will be legally binding and  must comply with the norms and principles of international law, while  the issues put to the vote should not be limited and may include all  options regarding the status."

"Please note that all the parameters related to the status are  indicated here - everything. These are his words, his quote about the  negotiation process and the settlement proposal that he inherited.  But he rejected them and went to secret negotiations with Aliyev, and  today we have what we have. If the Republic of Armenia and the  Republic of Artsakh agreed that the NKR would be part of Azerbaijan,  what were they negotiating about from 1996 to 2018? Azerbaijan  offered Artsakh "the highest degree of autonomy." But if Yerevan and  Stepanakert agreed to this, why was the peace agreement not signed?  There is only one reason:  Pashinyan is lying," the MP explained.

Khachatryan emphasized that after Levon Ter-Petrosyan's Lisbon  failure in 1998, there were no more proposals for Armenian autonomy  in Azerbaijan. In 2001, in exchange for a corridor through Meghri  that would not hinder communication with Iran, Nagorno-Karabakh and  the Lachin corridor were to be transferred to Armenia. At the same  time, the MP continued, the fundamental or "Madrid principles"  developed in 2006 assumed that the people of Artsakh would have the  right to decide their political fate through a referendum.

"This right was not limited in any way, as stated in the document  cited by Pashinyan. He came and destroyed the entire negotiation  process. Even the settlement proposed by Ter-Petrosyan was better  than what we have now. Today, under Pashinyan, the Turks are in  Artsakh, which is a consequence of his actions. And let no one try to  distort history and blame the people who fought for the Motherland in  order to justify this crime," the MP concluded. It should be noted  that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, today, once again  trying to absolve himself of responsibility for the surrender of  Artsakh, stated that "since 1994, that is, after the ceasefire, the  negotiation process has been about the return of Nagorno-Karabakh to  Azerbaijan."

"The negotiation process had no other content. Narratives about other  content were introduced in the Republic of Armenia solely to solve  domestic political problems. In this context, I made a big mistake -  in 2018, when I was getting acquainted with the content of the  negotiations, I did not admit the above to myself (my patriotism of  the model known to you did not allow me to do this) and, therefore, I  did not explain all this to the people," Pashinyan wrote on social  media. It is noteworthy that back in the fall of 2016, Azerbaijani  President Ilham Aliyev complained that he was being forced to  recognize Artsakh behind closed doors. And these revelations of  Aliyev, according to independent experts, do not fit into the logic  of today's statements by the Armenian prime minister, who back in  August 2019, on the Renaissance Square in Stepanakert, loudly shouted  "Artsakh is Armenia, period," and in 2023, with the same confidence,  echoed "Artsakh is Azerbaijan."