Armenia supports Russian plan to maintain status quo in Artsakh
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Loading... - kai abigail
- 03 Nov 2022
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Armenia’s approach to negotiations with Azerbaijan is fully in line with Russian proposals, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan told lawmakers on Wednesday two days after his trilateral meeting with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and Russian President Vladimir Putin in Sochi.
“There is a Russian concept, and there is a non-Russian concept,” Pashinyan said. “There is an attempt to create an impression that steps taken by the Armenian government are in conflict with the Russian concept. That is not true.”
The day after the trilateral summit, Russia’s ambassador to Armenia Sergey Kopyrkin told reporters that the issue of determining the status of Artsakh “should be left to the next generations, when the conditions for a solution to the problem acceptable and fair to all are in place.”
Pashinyan said that the Armenian government’s policy “100-percent corresponds” with the view that the status quo in Artsakh should be maintained for the time being. During the Sochi meeting, he tried to include this “Russian concept” in the trilateral statement yet backed off at Russia’s urging “in order to not make the situation deadlocked.”
Pashinyan, Aliyev and Putin released a joint statement after the summit, their first trilateral meeting since November 2021. The leaders “agreed to refrain from the use of force or the threat of its use” and “to discuss and resolve all problematic issues solely on the basis of mutual recognition of sovereignty, territorial integrity and inviolability of borders.” They also “stressed the importance of active preparation for the conclusion of a peace treaty” between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The statement made no reference to the Artsakh conflict.
While Putin called the meeting “useful,” he said that some previously agreed-on texts had to be removed from the final statement.
“I must say frankly that not everything was agreed upon,” Putin told reporters after the meeting. “Some things had to be removed from the text previously worked out at the level of specialists.”
In addition to trying to include an agreement to postpone a decision on the status of Artsakh in the trilateral statement, Pashinyan also proposed extending the Russian peacekeeping mission in Artsakh by 15 to 20 years, which Azerbaijan rejected. “The Karabakh conflict is already history,” Aliyev told reporters before the meeting. “It was resolved two years ago, so there is practically nothing to discuss in this context.”
Under the trilateral ceasefire agreement brokered by Russia, around 2,000 Russian peacekeepers were sent to Artsakh following the end of the 44-day war in 2020. The mission is set to expire in 2025.
On the eve of the Sochi summit, the Artsakh parliament requested that Russia “introduce additional political and military mechanisms” to ensure its security in a unanimous statement adopted during an extraordinary session.
“Taking into account Russia’s historical role in ensuring peace and stability in our region and, in particular, President Vladimir Putin’s direct and active participation in halting the 44-day war imposed on us in 2020 by aggressor-Azerbaijan, we appeal to the Russian Federation and ask to continue its commitment to ensure the security of the people of Artsakh,” the lengthy statement reads. “To strengthen it, we propose to introduce additional political and military mechanisms, taking into account the real existential dangers threatening the Armenians of Artsakh.” Read More…
