November 9 obligations have no direct or indirect connection with any other agreement - Pashinyan

YEREVAN, SEPTEMBER 13, ARMENPRESS. The obligations recorded in the 9 November 2020 trilateral statement are not connected with any other signed or announced agreement, PM Nikol Pashinyan has said.

Asked to comment on Russia’s proposed option to indefinitely delay the determination of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, Pashinyan said that the offer was made in July-August 2022. “After that, Russia’s representative, Khovaev, visited the region in September 2022 to understand the reactions of Armenia and Azerbaijan. He first visited Azerbaijan, he was there September 11-12, he came to Armenia on September 13, and overnight September 13 the Azerbaijani military launched a major attack against the sovereign territory of Armenia. In response to Armenia’s written and verbal appeals to fulfill their obligations under the contracts, the CSTO and Russia did not react. Armenia had given a positive response to Russia’s proposal which was presented by Khovaev,” Pashinyan said.

He reminded that an agreement was reached on October 6 that Armenia and Azerbaijan are mutually recognizing each other’s territorial integrity and sovereignty based on the Alma-Ata Declaration.

“Armenia made this decision to protect its own territorial integrity, because in the situation when Azerbaijan is attacking Armenia’s territory and capturing territories, and when Armenia’s allies are silent and are not reacting, the Republic of Armenia had to agree to that on October 6, in order to record its own sovereignty and territorial integrity. Those who are saying that this was a wrong decision are saying that the Republic of Armenia shouldn’t be a sovereign state,” Pashinyan said.

Asked whether the Prague October 6 agreement could have any direct connection or impact on the 9 November 2020 statement, Pashinyan said that the latter doesn’t contain any reference to the NK status. “The obligations stipulated in the 9 November trilateral statement have no direct or indirect connection with any other document or agreement, either signed or announced,” Pashinyan said, noting that Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan have not announced cancelling the 9 November agreement. “I am announcing that the 9 November trilateral statement is fully in force,” Pashinyan said.

Since the 9 November statement was signed decades after the signing of the Alma-Ata Declaration, then any reference to the latter cannot impact the 9 November statement. “Furthermore, if the recognition of Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan under international law is an obstruction to the trilateral statement, then this obstruction was created by Russia, because it was Russia who announced in December and November of 2020 that Nagorno-Karabakh is internationally part of Azerbaijan,” Pashinyan said.