Lie exposed: Artsakh could have remained Armenian

On Tuesday, December 2, the Armenian government released part of the documents that formed the basis of negotiations over Nagorno-Karabakh. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had announced the publication back in early November in response to opposition demands. The government’s website posted 13 files: the draft discussed in Kazan in 2011; proposals from mediators in 2019; a letter from Armenia’s third president Serzh Sargsyan to Russian President Vladimir Putin in August 2016; and several other materials.

One of the key documents published on the government’s website is the proposal of the co-chairs from the summer of 2019. These proposals contained several provisions favorable to the Armenian side: retention of control over Kelbajar and Lachin until a referendum on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh; recognition of Armenia as the guarantor of Nagorno-Karabakh’s security; and a ban on the deployment of Azerbaijani armed forces in the five districts around Nagorno-Karabakh to be transferred to Baku. The unrestricted right of the people of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic to self-determination, enshrined during Robert Kocharyan’s rule in the Madrid Principles, was also reflected in the 2019 document—the right to self-determination through a referendum, the results of which were to be recognized by the international community.

As for the plan of “exchanging Artsakh for Meghri,” even the published “document” states that this was something passed to the newspaper Haykakan Zhamanak by Levon Ter-Petrosyan’s staff. Even in US State Department documents, such wording or documents—especially as a final scheme for resolving the Karabakh issue—never appeared. Meanwhile, Pashinyan’s materials omit the document discussed in Key West in April 2001, when Robert Kocharyan was president. According to that plan, Nagorno-Karabakh would come under Armenia’s control, while Azerbaijan would gain the right to a transport corridor through the Meghri region—a corridor with the same status as Artsakh.

Pashinyan also failed to publish the content of the Prague agreements of 2022, under which he handed Artsakh to Azerbaijan. Nor were the official proposals of Russia and President Vladimir Putin from October 2020 published—proposals that would have preserved Shushi, Hadrut, and thousands of lives, and would have created different negotiation positions after the 2020 war. Most importantly, Pashinyan did not publish Armenia’s official response to the 2019 proposal.

Above all—in Armenia, even among the so-called “opposition,” there are those who say that “Nikol Pashinyan had no choice, the 2020 war was predetermined.” He did have a way out, and it is reflected in the 2019 document. However, such a solution would not have allowed him to detach Armenia from Russia and would not have allowed him to begin the path toward joining the Organization of Turkic States.

Think about it…