In a remote address to the UN General Assembly, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that Armenia is ready for constructive dialogue that should lead to the establishment of stable and lasting peace in the region. In this regard, the Republic of Armenia proposes the return of prisoners of war, hostages and all other detained persons, as well as the resumption of the peaceful process of settling the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict under the auspices of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairmanship.
“The right of the people of Artsakh to self-determination cannot be suspended through the use of force, and the conflict cannot be considered resolved as a result of the use of force. The Nagorno-Karabakh conflict awaits its just resolution,” Pashinyan declared, adding that the contacts carried out through the mediation of the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs give the parties the opportunity to find common ground and open a field for finding answers to many questions.
From the UN rostrum, the Armenian leader recalled one of the provisions of the government’s programme — opening an era of peaceful development. “Through dialogue, by gradually overcoming the atmosphere of hostility painfully present in our region. We are aware that the road will be difficult and long. Even today, unfortunately, almost every day events occur whose purpose is to delegitimize the peace agenda, not only to deepen the atmosphere of hostility but also to make it more systematic. Ceasefire violations and aggressive and offensive statements against Armenia and the Armenian people continuously strain the atmosphere.”
According to Pashinyan, a practice directed against the peace agenda is that Azerbaijan does not fulfill point 8 of the November 9 statement, to this day keeping several dozen citizens of the Republic of Armenia in captivity, sentencing many of them to imprisonment on fabricated charges. He also stressed that there are citizens whose capture Azerbaijan has not confirmed to this day, despite clear evidence of their being held in captivity.
“This becomes even more unacceptable against the background that in the autumn of 2020 Azerbaijani users published videos of the capture of specific Armenian soldiers, and later the beheaded or shot bodies of those soldiers were found. We have irrefutable evidence of the torture of our prisoners,” said the Prime Minister.
Pashinyan also touched upon the opening of regional roads, which is also one of the points of the trilateral statement. According to Pashinyan, the solution to this issue creates an opportunity for the formation of economic ties, as well as being one of the important preconditions for peaceful development.
“There are options that aim to record regional isolation and an atmosphere of hostility, but there are also options that emphasize regional interconnectedness and can become a means of gradually overcoming the atmosphere of hostility. We are in favor of this latter option.
“If the railway connecting Turkey to Armenia is also opened, the topic of opening regional communications will take on much greater dimensions,” declared Nikol Pashinyan.
