Ex-Karabakh officials’ rhetoric about return is unrealistic and contradicts national interests of Armenia – PM Pashinyan

YEREVAN, AUGUST 31, ARMENPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said that the wording and content used by some former officials of Nagorno-Karabakh about the return of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians is unrealistic and contradicts the national interests of Armenia.

“I’m not the one who signed the order on dissolving Nagorno-Karabakh,” Pashinyan told a reporter who asked him why he doesn’t speak about the right to return of the NK Armenians.

“On the contrary, before this order was adopted in Nagorno-Karabakh, a change of government took place there, which was encouraged and welcomed by well-known circles here in Armenia,” Pashinyan said.

“I want to tell you an episode that happened a few months ago. I was visiting Vayk, where a forcibly displaced women from Nagorno-Karabakh approached me and asked, tell me honestly, how realistic is the matter of our return. I gave her the same answer, that I can’t lie, I don’t find it realistic with the perceptions that some representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh are trying to represent the matter. For the same reasons that these same people signed the order on dissolving Nagorno-Karabakh and left it immediately,” he said.

“The content that is presented contradicts the national interests of Armenia. I measure the national interest of Armenia by its internationally recognized territories and jurisdiction,” he added.

Pashinyan called on the society to revalue its past, noting, “Reassessing our path, I said in parliament, that it is obvious to me, that after the 1996 Lisbon summit, the Nagorno-Karabakh issue was not a Nagorno-Karabakh issue, but the Republic of Armenia issue, an issue of nullifying the Armenian statehood, and with time I am more convinced in this. The context through which they try to present this issue contradicts the national interest of Armenia.”