Babayan: Armenian side has never recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan by any document
ArmInfo.The Armenian side has never recognized Artsakh as a part of Azerbaijan by any document. This was stated by Advisor to the President of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, Artsakh President's Representative-at-Large, former Foreign Minister of Artsakh David Babayan.
"If this was so, then why did we start the Artsakh movement? We separated from Azerbaijan in 1988, and Armenia has repeatedly accepted this fact, as well as the whole world. There is a Minsk group, Artsakh is recognized as a party to the conflict and a party to negotiations by the same OSCE, this is a fact, and we must speak only with facts," Babayan added.
According to him, in spite of everything, the Armenian side must act as its duty requires, that is, Artsakh should not be part of Azerbaijan. "Why should we now self-determine as part of Azerbaijan? We did it a long time ago, and we made our choice," he summed up.
It should be noted that yesterday the Prime Minister of Armenia from the rostrum of the parliament again presented his interpretation of the legacy left to him by the "former authorities" on the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement. According to him, to solve this problem, it is necessary to look at it from two points of view - before the Madrid principles and after them. "Before the Madrid principles, the position of the Armenian side was that Nagorno-Karabakh was never part of an independent Azerbaijan, and in the context of the collapse of the Soviet Union, Artsakh exercised its right to self-determination, leaving the USSR along with other subjects as an independent subject, which is recorded in the Almaty Declaration.
In 2007, when Robert Kocharyan was the head of state, and Serzh Sargsyan was the prime minister of the republic, the Madrid principles appeared, which emphasized both the territorial integrity of states and the right of peoples to self-determination. At that time, it was pointed out that it was necessary to clarify the status of Nagorno-Karabakh using certain mechanisms that should have been agreed with Azerbaijan as well. Before the Madrid principles, it was about the Soviet Union, after them - Azerbaijan. This means that Nagorno-Karabakh must be part of Azerbaijan in order to self-determine, otherwise, it is not clear from whom it is self-determined. This content is our main omission," Pashinyan stressed, assuring that the authorities are in a trap from which they have not been able to get out since 2018. It should be noted that this statement of the Prime Minister of Armenia at least raises many questions. If these allegations of Pashinyan are true, then why, then, in October 2016, the President of Azerbaijan, Ilham Aliyev, at a meeting of the government of the country, complained to members of the Cabinet of Ministers that Azerbaijan was being forced to recognize the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic. "We are under pressure behind closed doors in order to force an agreement on the recognition of the independence of Nagorno- Karabakh. We do not disclose many details, because there are rules of diplomacy," Ilham Aliyev said during a speech at a cabinet meeting on the results of socio-economic development nine months of 2016 and the challenges ahead.
In addition, after the large-scale military aggression against Artsakh in the fall of 2020, Aliyev boasted that he managed to "return 7 regions" and even Shushi, while Serzh Sargsyan was not going to return Karvachar and Berdzor.