Author: Edgar Tavakalian

ArmInfo.. According to international law, the precedent of international recognition of  Kosovo’s independence can certainly be applied in the case of  Artsakh.  International law expert Ara Ghazaryan expressed a similar  opinion to ArmInfo.

” What does recognition of Kosovo mean? This is the recognition by  the international community of the absence of any international legal  norms prohibiting any community from declaring its own independence.   In other words, the court verdict recognizing Kosovo created the  antithesis of the international principle of the territorial  integrity of states. The antithesis, which later developed into the  status of an international rights,” he said.

According to Ghazaryan, given the indisputable observance of all  rights, from freedom of assembly to the right to elect and be elected  by the people of Artsakh, not a single country in the world has  questioned the regularity of Artsakh’s declaration of its own  independence to this day. This, of course, also applies to Kosovo. At  the same time, the expert stressed that the same international  community does not recognize the similar right of communities that  have declared independence in the face of violence, racism and  intolerance.

“In this light, the statements of political leaders of some countries  about the prevalence of the principle of territorial integrity over  the principle of the people’s right to self-determination proceeds  solely from political expediency, and in no way from fundamental  human rights. Armenia raised all these issues in the international  arena long before the recognition of Kosovo. And the latter, having  become a precedent, only strengthened our demands. And if the Artsakh  conflict had not been considered, including through the prism of the  right of peoples to self-determination, in the end, the OSCE Minsk  Group itself would not have been formed in 1992,” he stressed. 

According to the lawyer, Baku’s statements that the activities of the  OSCE Minsk Group are pointless, are conditioned by its attempts to  transfer the issue exclusively into the platform of the principle of  territorial integrity. But they are faced with the recognition of the  right to self-determination by all member states of the Minsk Group.  Moreover, he recalled that the European Parliament once adopted a  resolution on the need to specifically resolve the problem of Artsakh  on the basis of the Artsakh people’s right to independence.  

“Thus, Azerbaijan’s attempt to solve the problem by military-political  means did not finally resolve it in any way. Armenians live in Artsakh,  people who have rights live there, including the right to their own  self- determination. In other words, this fundamental right will  exist as long as there is a community there. In this light, it is at  least premature to talk about the final resolution of the Artsakh  problem. And not only the Prime Minister of Armenia, but also  international institutions, including the hegemonic country in face  of the United States are already saying that it has not been resolved  yet,” the lawyer concluded.

ArmInfo. Important agreements have been reached in Moscow on the principles of unblocking regional communications. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated on April 22, at a government meeting, describing his two-day official  visit to the Russian Federation as productive. 

He expressed gratitude to his Russian counterparts led by President  Vladimir Putin.  According to him, during the Moscow meetings the  most key issues on the bilateral agenda were discussed, which is  reflected in the joint statement of the President of the Russian  Federation and the Prime Minister of Armenia. Particular attention  was paid to issues of regional stability and security. “Important  agreements have been reached on the principles of unblocking regional  communications, the similarity of the approaches of the Republic of  Armenia and the Russian Federation has been fixed,” he said.

In this direction, as Pashinyan pointed out, it is possible to fix  the commonality of approaches of all international partners. “I would  like to reaffirm the readiness of the RA to launch as soon as  possible the construction of a railway and a highway connecting East  and West through the territory of Armenia. I hope that in the near  future the trilateral working group at the level of the Deputy Prime  Ministers of Armenia, Russia and Azerbaijan will be able to develop  and agree on the necessary documents for process start”,the head of  government stressed.