Armenia is ready to recognize the territory of Azerbaijan with an area of 86.6 thousand km², including Nagorno-Karabakh, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said during a press conference on May 22. He stressed that this is possible in case of providing international security guarantees for the Armenian population of the region.
According to Pashinyan, in this case, Baku should recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia in 29.8 thousand km². This area includes the territories occupied by Azerbaijan, including the village of Artsvashen in the Gegharkunik region.
“Issues of the security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh should be discussed between Stepanakert and Baku, and we consider it important to create international guarantees. What do we mean? We mean that, for example, the issue of security and rights of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh can be forgotten, and Azerbaijan will continue to pursue its policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide, and we consider it important to have international guarantees,” Pashinyan said.
According to him, before the meeting in Washington, which took place in early May, the Armenian side submitted amendments to the text of the peace treaty to the Azerbaijani side. “If Azerbaijan gives us its version one of these days, and after considering it in a few days, we will see that the document complies with the logic of mutual concessions, then why not, the agreement can be signed during the next meetings,” Pashinyan said.
The prime minister also did not rule out that Armenia could de jure terminate or suspend participation in the CSTO. “This is possible if Armenia states that the CSTO has withdrawn from Armenia,” Pashinyan said, implying the organization’s failure to fulfill its obligations.
“In this case, the CSTO member status, which gives nothing, will only prevent us from discussing the security agenda with other countries. Do you think that Armenia has not received other offers in the field of acquiring weapons from other countries? Of course I did, and these opportunities were not realized mainly because of Armenia's membership in the CSTO,” Pashinyan said.
Since mid-December, Karabakh has been under a blockade organized by Azerbaijan, an acute shortage of food and medicine has begun in the unrecognized republic, and there are regular interruptions in electricity, gas, and the Internet. In April, Azerbaijani troops, in violation of the Trilateral Statement of November 2020, set up a checkpoint in the Lachin corridor, which is located in the zone of responsibility of Russian peacekeepers. In February, the International Court of Justice in The Hague, where Armenia filed a lawsuit, ordered Azerbaijan to “take all measures at its disposal to ensure the unhindered movement of persons, vehicles and goods along the Lachin corridor in both directions.” Baku ignored the court decision.