Pundit: Azerbaijan's demand prompted Pashinyan's response on villages' handover

Political analyst Armen Baghdasaryan has weighed in on Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's recent statements regarding the return of four non-enclave villages to Azerbaijan, clarifying that Pashinyan expressed readiness to hand them over. Baghdasaryan's comments came during an interview with Armenian media, as reported by Caliber.Az.

"In fact, Pashinyan said very clearly that he is ready to return four non-enclave villages of Azerbaijan in the direction of Tavush region, he said it very clearly. And when he says that this is nonsense, delusion, etc., he said very clearly why this is nonsense, because these villages do not belong to Armenia and have never been Armenia, so these are Azerbaijani villages. He himself said that these are Azerbaijani villages, and of course these villages should be returned. But I understood it this way: he asked for time so that Armenia could change the roads so that they would not pass through the territory of Azerbaijan," he said.

"It is very bad that there are Russian border guards at Zvartnots airport, and it is very bad that the Armenian-Turkish and Armenian-Iranian borders are also guarded by Russian border guards. Another question is, if we reached such an agreement at one time, naturally, based on some realities, have these realities changed now that we can raise this issue and, if they are implemented, will the dangers not be greater than the benefits received? Obviously, Russia will correlate the fact of the existence of its border guards at the Zvartnots airport with the issue of the presence of Russian border guards on the borders of Armenia in general. And they will not disconnect the two, and it's not a matter of being able to secure one part of the border and not the other. The Russians are at Zvartnots for the purpose or under the pretext of protecting Armenia's several borders. In any case, this is part of the general treaty, and it is impossible to cancel one part of the treaty and keep the other.

To summarise, I think the main reason was the following. Azerbaijan demanded to immediately hand over 4 non-enclave villages, and Nikol Pashinyan immediately called a press conference to assure Azerbaijan that yes, he is ready to give them away, it just takes a little time for them to change their way of life. That's all," the political analyst added.