YEREVAN, OCTOBER 23, ARMENPRESS. The Azerbaijani ambitions concerning the Nagorno Karabakh lack any historical, legal and moral grounds.  President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan said the aforementioned when making a speech on the sidelines of the third international graduates’ forum of Moscow State Institute of International Relations.  

“The people of the Nagorno Karabakh struggle for their inalienable right to self-determination, right established by UN Charter and other fundamental international documents.

For centuries the Nagorno Karabakh has proved its right to free existence by paying the price of persistent fight. Nagorno Karabakh has never been part of independent Azerbaijan,” “Armenpress” reports Sargsyan stated. 

President of Armenia specified that Azerbaijan appeared on Transcaucasia map after the collapse of the Russian Empire in 1918. That is why, it is inappropriate to speak about Nagorno Karabakh belonging to Azerbaijan before 1918 as such state did not exist at that time.

“The League of Nations rejected the request for Azerbaijan's membership because of the uncertainty of its borders. Azerbaijani tried to annex Karabakh by using military force. In 1918-1920 Azerbaijani military forces carried out massacres against the Armenian population. In March, 1920 about 40,000 Armenians were killed and deported only in Shushi. This horrible massacre left a deep and bleeding wound.

As poet Mandelstam wrote “Forty thousand dead windows are visible there from all directions,” President emphasized.

The President stated that Karabakh, despite the will of its people, was incorporated by the Caucasian Bureau of the Communist Party of Russia to Azerbaijan in 1920 forming on its territory an autonomous oblast, which did not have any legal basis or authority to make a decision like that. Moreover, the whole territory of Karabakh was not included within the autonomous oblast as a result of which Karabakh did not have a common border with Armenia. 

On October 18, 1991 Azerbaijan annulled by its Constitutional Act all the acts adopted in the times of the Soviet Union referring Azerbaijan. By that Azerbaijan also annulled all the acts that referred to Nagorno Karabakh.

“And in order to fully understand what fate was awaiting the Armenians of Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan, we must bring the example of annexation of another Armenian region - Nakhichevan - in this case as an autonomous republic, where systematic policy of elimination of its Armenian population and historical memorials was conducted. We must note that the Lazarians came from Nakhichevan.

On the days of Soviet Union collapse the people of Nagorno Karabakh, following the norms on international right and in accordance with USSR legislation, proclaimed its independence by a referendum, just like former Soviet republics including Azerbaijan did. Moreover, Azerbaijani independence referendum was held after that of Karabakh.  Thus, on the territory of the former Azerbaijani SSR two equal state formations were created - Nagorno-Karabakh Republic and the Republic of Azerbaijan,” President of Armenia specified.

He reminded that Azerbaijan which had the possibility of creating an independent state for the second time in 100 years repeated the actions of 1918 launching aggression against Nagorno Karabakh, bombarding peaceful towns and villages, massacring and deporting Armenians, adding that academician Andrei Sakharov described the massacres of the Armenians in Sumgait, Baku and Kirovabad as an attempt of organizing a new genocide against the Armenians.

“Azerbaijan was forced to start direct negotiations with Nagorno Karabakh leadership aimed to sign a ceasefire agreement encountering heroic resistance of Karabakh people and losing several thousands of sq. km and putting more territories under threat during military operations. Nagorno Karabakh-Azerbaijan high level meetings were held, temporal ceasefire agreements were signed as a result of which a trilateral indefinite ceasefire agreement was signed between Nagorno Karabakh, Azerbaijan and Armenia in May, 1994. Within the same format the decree of reinforcing the ceasefire regime was signed aimed at creating favorable conditions for the negotiation process. Both documents are valid till now as they are indefinite. This means that the Azerbaijani authorities have recognized Nagorno Karabakh at least as a conflict party. As we can see, when Baku really wishes to reach some results over Karabakh problem it indirectly holds negotiations with Nagorno Karabakh and does not impede Nagorno Karabakh to be included in the negotiation process”, the President added.

Negotiations over Nagorno Karabakh conflict resolution are conducted under the auspices of OSCE Minsk Group mediation format, which is the only institution with international mandate to do that. Azerbaijan continually rejects all proposals by the co-chairs aimed at both conflict settlement and raising mutual trust by contradistinguishing the negotiations by escalating the situation on the Armenian border and on Nagorno Karabakh contact line causing numerous casualties including among civilians. Recently Azerbaijan entered a new phase of escalating the situation by using heavy weapons.

According to the President, in this way Azerbaijan not only violates its international commitments of peaceful conflict settlement, which are to abstain from force or the threat to use force enshrined in UN charter, Helsinki final act and other documents, but also violates its commitments within the framework of trilateral agreement thoroughly neglecting numerous calls by OSCE Minsk Group Co-chairs.

“In order to approve its unconstructive stance Azerbaijani side selectively relies on the 4 resolutions adopted by the UNSC adopted in 1993 during fierce military operations, deliberately distorting the logic of those resolutions.

The aim and the key demand of the abovementioned UN resolutions was “to immediately end military or hostile activities”. As refers to the conflict resolution, it is enshrined in the respective resolution “to look for opportunities of the conflict settlement within the format of Minsk Group”, which once again proves that Azerbaijani arguments are baseless.

Azerbaijan was the one that thwarted the implementation of all 4 resolutions not implementing their main demands: Immediately stop military operations, without which it became impossible to fulfill the other provisions of the resolution and the calls of the UNSC. The ceasefire agreement was signed on May 12 which was a year after the UNSC 1st resolution and 6 months after the UNSC 4th resolution. Can this be considered immediate? In contrast to UNSC demands, “hostile activities”, such as blockade, constant incidents, provocations, anti-Armenian propaganda, military rhetoric, war of snipers and other hostile measures were endless. Moreover, during the winter of 1993-1994 Azerbaijan waged the largest attack against Nagorno Karabakh. Id Azerbaijan wanted the three sides to comply with the UNSC demands and resolutions, why did it launch such an onslaught?

Armenia is not mentioned as a party of the conflict in any of the resolutions. The calls addressed to our country only urged to “continue influencing” Armenians of Nagorno Karabakh for ending the conflict, which Armenia fulfilled completely. Moreover, Nagorno Karabakh was recognized as a party of the conflict in the resolutions. And the calls to conduct “direct interactions” meant interactions between Baku and Stepanakert. Denying to hold negotiations with Nagorno Karabakh leadership was a violation of the UNSC resolution. But it was not the final one. This list can be continued.

The resolution also demands to “restore economic, transport and energetic communications of the region”. As I have already mentioned, since the start of the conflict Azerbaijan and Turkey have blockaded Armenia and Nagorno Karabakh. Azerbaijani leadership announces that it is foreign policy priority issue for Azerbaijan”, Serzh Sargsyan stated.