There is a mention of Karabakh in the text of the peace treaty between Armenia and Azerbaijan, but that document is not final, Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan said in response to a question from “Azatutyun”.
Yerevan and Baku have been working on the text of the peace treaty for five months, periodically revising it and passing it to each other. However, until today it is not known whether the parties have reached any agreement on that document. The draft under discussion has also not been published.
Regarding the mention relating to Artsakh, Grigoryan said the following: “There is a mention of Karabakh. It must be taken into account that this document is not yet final. This is a negotiation process. And you know, there is a well-known approach in negotiations that if not everything is agreed, then nothing is agreed yet.”
In response to “Azatutyun’s” question, “Is it a matter of principle for the Armenian side that the Karabakh issue be raised in any way in that peace treaty document?”, he said: “For the Armenian side, what is more important is the creation of an internationally visible mechanism within the framework of which Stepanakert and Baku will discuss security and rights. In what format that will be done is not the priority. The priority is the creation of the mechanism.”
Grigoryan informed that the Armenian side is currently working on the text of the peace treaty with Azerbaijan and will pass it to Azerbaijan as quickly as possible.
Speaking about the approximately 100 European Union observers arriving in Armenia in about a week, Grigoryan said the Armenian authorities invited them with the aim of creating certain security guarantees. He stressed that those guarantees are not created by military presence alone. “In 2021, in May and November, there was an attack on Armenia’s sovereign territory. The same happened — a large-scale attack — last September. And taking into account that experience, that the existing security guarantees do not work, Armenia invited the European Union civilian mission to create certain security guarantees,” Grigoryan stated.
Answering the question of what Armenia is doing to open the Lachin corridor, he assured that the Armenian authorities are doing everything in this direction. “The only step that Armenia does not take, where it also has no authority, is precisely taking steps in the corridor, in the corridor itself. You know that by November 9 that responsibility was placed on the Russian Federation and Azerbaijan. And we expect that they will fulfil their obligation,” Grigoryan concluded.
