All packages provided for eliminating the then-existing status of Nagorno-Karabakh – Nikol Pashinyan

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan claims that no negotiation package has ever stated that a referendum must be held in Nagorno-Karabakh.

“On the contrary, they have all stated that it would be a national referendum reflecting the free will of the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh,” he said in the National Assembly.

According to Pashinyan, Azerbaijan’s interpretation was that such a referendum should take place across the entire territory of Azerbaijan.

The Prime Minister stated that if the proposals were good ones why today’s opposition did not agree to them.

“If there was a good proposal, why didn’t you accept it at the time? And if you didn’t accept it, then you owe people an explanation. And if the proposal was bad, then every subsequent one was even worse,” he stressed.

Pashinyan said that the 2019 document was not a standalone proposal but reflected the logic of earlier negotiations and was not presented to him as a new plan by the OSCE Minsk Group Co-Chairs.

“I repeat: if the situation was so favorable, then the 2019 proposal simply continued the negotiation logic of previous years. You were in coalition; you should have agreed and solved it, removed the burden from us. What do you want from us? I became Prime Minister in 2018, and now they say, ‘He gave away the lands, he gave, he will give.’ Why? Let me remind you: Serzh Sargsyan’s statement from April 17 is also part of that same package, where he says, ‘We should have stopped hoping long ago that Azerbaijan would abandon its desire to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue through war.’ Well, that situation existed back then. If the circumstances were better, why didn’t they resolve it? Why did they leave behind stalled negotiations, a deadlock, and war?” he said.

Pashinyan added that all negotiation packages provided for the elimination of Nagorno-Karabakh’s then-existing status.

“Dissolution, zeroing out, and creating a new Armenian-Azerbaijani framework from scratch. Why don’t you mention that? It’s written in black and white,” he emphasized.