YEREVAN, OCTOBER 26, ARMENPRESS. The Chairman of the Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia Artak Zaqaryan made a speech on the 23rd anniversary of independence of Artsakh in Belgium. The Standing Committee on Foreign Relations of the National Assembly of the Republic of Armenia informed “Armenpress” that Artak Zakaryan underscored:

“This evening, I am not speaking as the chairman of the foreign relations Committee of the Armenian Parliament, nor as head of the Armenian delegation to the EURONEST parliamentary assembly, not even as member of the political assembly of the EPP.

This evening I would like to speak as what I am as a person, from the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh, a habitant, unfortunately often absent, from my beloved village of Hadrut in the Southern region.

Some people say that Karabakh is the Eastern end of Europe, others say it is the beginning of Europe, Nagorno-Karabakh is part of Europe, furthermore I think it is somehow the soul of Europe, the voice of Europe’s conscience, often light, but very truthful,  sometimes ignored resulting in fatalities, and I am going to try and explain you why.

Artsakh belongs to the European community of values, throughout our 3000 years history, together with Armenians we were the first to adopt Christianity as official religion in the world, since then our land enjoyed quite a high level of independency sometimes associated to different empires, also fully independent, as in the form of federation with other kingdoms. Those were the times when our noble families were marrying European royalty and our people were hand in hand with all European endeavours in order to preserve Christianity.

Just like most of you we have also experienced the face of the most atrocious totalitarian regimes. The origin of the problem we are still suffering was an arbitrary decision of Lenin implemented by Stalin, when back in 1920 they decided to put Nagorno-Karabakh under the recently created Socialist Republic of Azerbaijan. Over 60 years of repression followed, which combined with our self-sufficient vocation and determination were not enough to neutralise our European values. As a result in 1988 the 1st pacific democratic movement against Soviet rule broke up in Karabakh, which as you know, would be followed by our European friends. Fully in line with the legal framework in force, the Soviet Constitution, and international law, the 1st self-determination referendum in Europe took place on the 10th of December of 1991 when the people of Nagorno-Karabakh peacefully opted for their independency with a participation of 82% and 99.99% of votes supporting this option.

Unfortunately this democratic and peaceful expression was followed by a large scale military aggression launched by Azerbaijan, resulting in 40.000 victims and a cease fire signed by Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia.

Since then, our population continues to be militarily harassed in the only self-regulated cease-fire in the world. However we have managed to implement by ourselves a European based democratic model of development, where Presidents change through elections, parties alternate in power and people are proud of their democratic institutions.

People of Karabakh, we will continue standing for our right to decide our own future. We all know what is Azerbaijan today, a totalitarian country with the record of political prisoners in all Eastern Partnership. An elite profiting from oil revenues while the population can’t even develop any political project confronting the regimes main lines, while electoral processes are just a charade.

How can anybody conceive that our country should pass under the control of the most corrupted and totalitarian regime in the Eastern partnership? Would any country like to be part of Azerbaijan against their people’s will?

This is what I understand by being the voice of Europe’s conscience, and I am confident that the renewed European Parliament, our European Parliament friends will act as loudspeakers of the voice of Europe’s conscience, of Nagorno-Karabakh, not only in this House but also in all EU Institutions.

Because in the end, history proofs that what is good for Nagorno-Karabakh is good for Europe and when we do not stick to our values, when we do not listen our conscience we lose our real freedom.

Thank you my European friends, and of course all participants for taking this important challenge.”