Armenian separatist: Garabagh to be as part of Azerbaijan

Armenian separatist Vahram Atanesyan has said that Karabakh will either not exist or will be within Azerbaijan with a certain status and with guarantees of human rights and freedoms.

Atanesyan made the statement during a conversation with the Armenian channel Factor.Tv, Caliber.Az reports.

“Some representatives of our expert and political field, including people whom I respect very much, who call for restraint in statements, not to blame Russia, for 20 years, from 1998 to 2018, this public was indoctrinated that Russia is the enemy of Azerbaijan and Türkiye, and if we have a problem, Russia will support us,” he noted.

“This is a sign of the absolute political and legal illiteracy that our Armenian society in Karabakh [Garabagh] and Armenia had and still has today. They say, if Nikol Pashinyan had not been there, Russia would be behind us. These people lack political education, they do not understand and do not know that the agreement signed in 1997 between Russia and Armenia on mutual assistance and friendship was signed 3 months earlier with Azerbaijan,” Atanesyan noted.

He added that in August 1997, Russia signed the first agreement with Azerbaijan. There, it talks about recognising each other's territorial integrity, sovereignty, non-interference in internal affairs, etc. And, with this agreement, as well as the 2001 Baku Declaration signed by Heydar Aliyev and Vladimir Putin, to talk about, dream about, or think about Russia using weapons against Azerbaijan in a future war simply does not make sense, Atanesyan stressed.

“Society must have its immunity. When Serzh Sargsyan did not go to Moscow after the 4-day fighting in 2016, those who remember know that he rushed to Berlin and declared from there that Armenia's weapons were from the 80s. It should have been clear to the public that this was the most serious accusation Serzh Sargsyan had made against Russia. This was followed by a big meeting in Vienna in which Russia was one of the participants, and if Armenian-Russian relations were truly allied, this meeting should have taken place in Moscow, between Putin, Aliyev and Sargsyan, and an agreement should have been reached at that time,” he stressed.

“Therefore, when the institutional opposition in Armenia insinuates to the public that Armenian-Russian relations have suffered, deteriorated or sunk several levels since the change of power in 2018, this is not quite true and it is a fact,” Atanesyan said.

“What are we fighting for? Politics is not a struggle. All nations fight to have territory, to have economic resources, to have communications, only we are fighting for a national idea without understanding exactly what this national idea is. Now we have missed, wasted and worsened dozens of opportunities for Karabakh not to be a part of Azerbaijan. We have brought the situation to the point that either there will be no Karabakh or it will be a part of Azerbaijan with a certain status and guarantees of human rights and freedoms. This is the situation. It is impossible to get out of this situation," he added.