Pashinyan explains his “Karabakh is Armenia, that’s it” remark

MediaMax, Armenia
Feb 14 2020
Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan has stated that his remark "Karabakh is Armenia, that’s it” has a "very clear and concrete meaning”.

“We have stated that we will consider an attack on Karabakh by Azerbaijan an attack on Armenia. Armenia is the guarantor of Karabakh’s security. This is all that needs to be said,” Pashinyan noted at Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung (FES), where he delivered a speech on February 13 during the working visit to Germany.

 The Prime Minister underlined that unilateral efforts could not solve the Karabakh issue.

 “Even if we assume that any government of Armenia should make one-sided efforts, it will only aggravate the problem, but not solve it. Azerbaijan loves to talk about territories, but we are talking about security, which is important to understand. If a country makes someone a hero for murdering an Armenian…

 The buffer zone Azerbaijan talks about was created exactly because of that, because when Azerbaijan shelled civilians’ homes, people, children had to hide in basements for years. 

When we hear “territories”, we think of security. First of all, it is not the Republic of Armenia, but the Republic of Artsakh that is not ready to concede its territories, the same as no country is ready to jeopardize its security. Therefore, the solution for this situation can be based only on guarantees of security, which are none at the moment. There have never been such guarantees. The lack of guarantees caused the situation we have now.

 We have not seen a single constructive step on the part of Azerbaijan in the last year and a half of talks. However, I would like to note that Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev and I managed to reduce the tension in the region and at the borders to an unprecedented low since our first meeting in September of 2018. I hope that constructive discussions will help us maintain the relatively stable situation and progress toward a legal settlement,” said Nikol Pashinyan.