There will be no new escalation or war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, says Pashinyan

There will be no new escalation or new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has said, adding that there will be peace. 

“The primary tool to manage our destiny is our words, and we say, there will be no new escalation and new war between Armenia and Azerbaijan, there will be peace,” Pashinyan said in parliament on April 17.

Pashinyan explained that Armenia and Azerbaijan have recognized each other’s territorial integrity, sovereignty, inviolability of internationally recognized borders and inadmissibility of the use of force or the threat of force. He reiterated that this has been done on both political and legal levels, since the regulation on the joint activities of the border delimitation commissions is a document of supreme legal force in both countries.

“And by adopting the Alma-Ata Declaration as the base principle for delimitation in that document, both Armenia and Azerbaijan have basically made the Alma-Ata Declaration the base principle for overall normalization of relations. And the base principles in that declaration are the inviolability of the borders of the Soviet republics, recognition of each other’s territorial integrity, non-interference in each other’s domestic affairs, non-use of force or the threat of force,” Pashinyan said. The PM called on all forces in Armenia and Azerbaijan to be extremely responsible and not make any statements that would directly or indirectly contradict this logic, and not cast doubt on this logic.

“I am officially announcing that the Government of the Republic of Armenia will not make statements or actions that would directly or indirectly contradict this logic or cast doubt on this logic. I am calling upon the government of Azerbaijan to not make statements or actions that directly or indirectly contradict this logic or cast doubt on this logic,” the Armenian PM said.

Pashinyan said there is no obstacle for signing the peace agreement since the talks around the terms of the document have been finalized.

“The text of the agreement is agreed upon, forget about Armenia-Azerbaijan escalation or war. We must open the new chapter of the history of South Caucasus together. And we are ready to simultaneously sign the peace agreement and the joint Armenia-Azerbaijan application to the OSCE on the dissolution of the Minsk Group bodies,” Pashinyan said.