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Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, in his address at the General Debate of the 81st session of the UN General Assembly, has lauded the peace established between Armenia and Azerbaijan but also touched upon the outstanding issues.
He specifically mentioned the clarification of the fate of those missing and also stressed that people in Armenia are waiting for the return of the Armenian prisoners who are still held in Azerbaijan.
“In the relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan, the clarification of the fate of several thousand missing persons is a matter that needs to be addressed, on which we have reached an agreement to cooperate with Azerbaijan. Armenia is ready to continue and deepen cooperation with Azerbaijan on the issue of demining. And of course, people in the Republic of Armenia are waiting for the return of Armenians who were detained in Azerbaijan as a consequence of the conflict. Along with these issues still being unresolved, another reason that fuels pessimists is the use of conflict rhetoric from time to time in certain circles of Armenia and Azerbaijan, sometimes at the official level. I think that we, I mean Armenia and Azerbaijan, have achieved more than sufficient results, which should be more valuable for us than the use of conflict rhetoric, whether it is about history or historical-cultural monuments or anything else,” Pashinyan said, according to a transcript of his speech.
He highlighted that cooperation between Armenia and Azerbaijan shall focus on strengthening peace.
“Nurturing the peace, strengthening and making it institutional should be the main theme of cooperation between Armenia and Azerbaijan. For two and a half years now, there have been no casualties or injuries as a result of cross-fire between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and I believe this is the greatest value that has been created as a result of the recent years. We have never had such a period in the relations between independent Armenia and independent Azerbaijan before, even though Armenians and Azerbaijanis have centuries of experience of peaceful coexistence. Our task, however, is not to restore that historical experience, but to build interstate relations on the basis of that experience of the peoples, based on respect for each other's territorial integrity, sovereignty, and political independence. This, by the way, is exactly the rhetoric that Armenia and Azerbaijan have already agreed upon and initialed in the text of the agreement on establishing peace and interstate relations between the two countries. The signing and ratification of the agreement, which was initialed at the Washington Peace Summit, is the next major topic in the joint agenda of Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we will consistently continue to work in this direction,” Pashinyan said.
The 19 remaining Armenian prisoners and detainees in Azerbaijan include former political and military leaders of Karabakh. Pashinyan’s administration has repeatedly stated that it continues efforts to secure their release. Earlier in February, an Azerbaijani military court sentenced several of the ex-leaders of Karabakh to life imprisonment on war-crime-related charges, which are widely seen as fabricated and part of a sham trial.