YEREVAN, JANUARY 13, ARMENPRESS. The latest statements coming out of Azerbaijan are a serious blow to the peace process, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said Saturday.

“In my assessment, the statements voiced from Baku in the recent period are a serious blow to the peace process. Why? For several reasons. The first reason is the following, as you know, we’ve publicly agreed for several times that peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan, as well as the delimitation and demarcation of borders, should be based on the 1991 December Alma-Ata Declaration. This means that Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other’s territorial integrity with the understanding that the territory of the Republic of Armenia is precisely as much as the territory of the Armenian SSR , and Azerbaijan’s territory is precisely as much as the territory of the Azerbaijani SSR.  That’s exactly what the Alma-Ata Declaration says, that the Soviet Union has collapsed and the Soviet republics that have joined the Alma-Ata Declaration gain independence with their territories and the administrative borders that existed between the Soviet states become state borders. This means that the border delimitation process isn’t about creating a border. Meaning, our delimitation commissions must not go and create a border, but they should rather restate the borders that have existed at the time when the 1991 Alma-Ata Declaration was adopted,” the Prime Minister said at a meeting of the ruling Civil Contract party in Gavar.

Pashinyan said that these agreements between Armenia and Azerbaijan were recorded in the quadrilateral statement adopted as a result of the 6 October 2022 Prague meeting, as well as during the meeting in Sochi held afterwards, and during the Brussels meeting on 15 July 2023.

“Why do I find these statements voiced from Azerbaijan to be a blow? Because what they are saying on the highest level is directly contradicting this logic and this agreement,” Pashinyan said.

PM Pashinyan also warned that Azerbaijan is attempting to generate territorial claims against Armenia, which is “totally unacceptable.”