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Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan announced that Yerevan is ready to recognize the Nagorno Karabagh enclave as part of Azerbaijan if Baku guarantees the safety of its Armenian population and recognizes its country’s borders. The dispute over this region, where a majority of the ethnic Armenian population lives but internationally recognized as Azerbaijani territory, was the origin of two wars between the two countries.
In an unprecedented statement, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian assured this Monday, May 22, that his country is open to recognizing the territory of Nagorno Karabagh as part of Azerbaijan, the Russian state news agency TASS reported.
Pashinian explained that for that to happen, Baku must guarantee the safety of its ethnic Armenian population, who number more than 120,000 people, as well as accept the Armenian borders.
“If we understand each other correctly, then Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan within the named limits, and Baku – the territorial integrity of Armenia in 29,800 square kilometers,” Pashinian stressed.
“At the same time we ensure that the question of the rights and security of the Karabakh people should be discussed between Stepanakert – the Karabakh capital – and Baku,” he added.
According to the Armenian prime minister, these issues should be discussed in upcoming peace talks.
“Armenia remains committed to the peace agenda in the region. And we hope that in the near future we will reach an agreement on the text of the peace treaty and we can sign it,” he added, according to the TASS agency.
Both the West and Russia are trying to play a mediating role in the conflict.
A few days ago, Moscow hosted talks in which Armenia and Azerbaijan began discussing various points of a future peace treaty.
Two weeks ago, Pashinian and his Azerbaijani counterpart Ilham Aliyev also met in Brussels, where they agreed to resume meetings on border issues and rail connections.
Towards the end of the conflict?
Nagorno Karabakh is an enclave where a majority of ethnically Armenian people live, but the territory is internationally recognized as part of Azerbaijan.
The region it is a source of conflict in the Caucasus for more than a century, creating tensions between the Armenians and the Turkish Azerbaijanis. During the existence of the Soviet Union, the area was part of Soviet Azerbaijan but the Armenians living there had already asked for it to be transferred to Armenia.
With the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, tensions escalated into open warfare.
After the end of the war in 1994, Nagorno-Karabakh and surrounding districts were partially controlled by Armenian forces.
In the years that followed, several deadly incidents took place between the two sides as they increased their firepower. Hundreds of people were killed in April 2016 after four days of heavy fighting.
In 2020, another open war led to Azerbaijan retaking control of areas that had been under Armenian control, and since then it has periodically closed the Lachin corridor, the only access road linking Nagorno-Karabakh with Armenia, allowing the enclave receive financial and military support.
Armenians living in Nagorno Karabakh have been blockaded by Azerbaijan for six months now and incidents of violence continue on a regular basis. The latest attack took place on May 11, when the Armenian Defense Ministry reported that the Azerbaijani Armed Forces opened fire with artillery, mortars and drones on Armenian positions in the Sotk area in the east of the country.
The position presented by Pashinian is not unanimously received by the Armenian population, particularly among those living in Nagorno Karabakh. However, he gives hope of seeing a possible closure to a conflict that has caused thousands of deaths.
With EFE and Reuters
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