Azerbaijan’s 86,600 square kilometers includes Nagorno-Karabakh. But it should also be noted that we say that the issue of the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians should be discussed in the Baku-Stepanakert format. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of Armenia stated this during his press conference Monday, responding to NEWS.am’s question: “If Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan’s 86,600 square kilometers, does that include Artsakh [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] or not? Have you thereby recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan or not?”
“No matter what the current government of Armenia says, all the governments of Armenia have recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan. I have made it more concrete, and I find it difficult to imagine more concretely, how I can say. Armenia is ready to recognize the territorial integrity [of Azerbaijan] of 86,600 square kilometers, and in our opinion, Azerbaijan is ready to recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia of 29,800 square kilometers. If we understand each other correctly on this issue with Azerbaijan, yes, Armenia recognizes Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity of 86,600 square kilometers with the understanding that Azerbaijan recognizes Armenia’s territory of 29,800 square kilometers,” said Pashinyan.
“Secondly, the issue of the rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians should be discussed through the Stepanakert-Baku dialogue. We consider it important to create international guarantees for these talks. We mean that the issue of the rights and security of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians may simply be forgotten and Azerbaijan will continue to implement the policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians using the lever of force. We consider it important that there be guarantees that this policy will not continue,” added the Armenian PM.
