“We need to fundamentally address the concept with which the Nagorno-Karabakh issue was pursued during the years of our independence,” said RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, adding that there are two parts to it, before the Madrid principles and after.
“Before the Madrid principles, the position of the Armenian side was that Nagorno-Karabakh was never part of independent Azerbaijan and exercised its right to self-determination in the context of the collapse of the USSR. And, like other subjects of the USSR, exercising their right to self-determination (recorded in the Alma Ata Declaration), they received independence, and so did NK. During the transformation and transfer of power in 2007, when Serzh Sargsyan was the prime minister and Robert Kocharian was the president, the Madrid principles appeared, where the principle of territorial integrity and the right to self-determination were emphasized. It was recorded that some mechanism should adjust the status of the NKR, and Azerbaijan should also agree upon the mechanism for adjusting that status. A serious conceptual change has occurred here,” said the Prime Minister.
“If before the Madrid principles, the position of the Armenian side was that Nagorno-Karabakh was never part of Azerbaijan and it is not now, therefore, there may be no need to agree on the future status because Nagorno-Karabakh has already determined itself, according to the Madrid principles, it was recorded that an agreement should be reached with Azerbaijan regarding the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. Thus, according to the decision of the Armenian side, the author of the project of those principles, according to some reliable information, is the Armenian side.”
According to the Prime Minister, self-determination means being somewhere and moving to another place by exercising the right to self-determination, “Before the Madrid principles, that place was the USSR; after the Madrid principles, Azerbaijan.”
According to him, it is the most significant omission of their government that after 2018, they should have explained and presented it to the people.
The Prime Minister also referred to leaving Nagorno-Karabakh out of the negotiation table, noting that thus the issue was replaced by a territorial dispute, “According to the Madrid principles, RA has recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan,” the Prime Minister emphasized.
