Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan blamed President Ilham Aliyev of Azerbaijan for exacerbating an already tense situation along the Armenia and Azerbaijan border and said that the Azerbaijani leader is squarely responsible for the further escalations.
In an interview with Armenpress published on Monday, Mirzoyan also said that statements from Baku about demarcation and delimitation of borders between Armenia and Azerbaijan on the basis of historical maps violate the commitments made by the two countries’ leaders in Prague and Sochi to carry out the process based on the UN Charter and the Alma-Ata Declaration.
In the interview, Mirzoyan also referred to Aliyev’s claims that that Armenia refused to participate in the tripartite meeting in Brussels scheduled for December 7, talked about the preparations for the peace treaty and assessed the current situation in the region.
Below is an English translation of the interview
Armenpress: Azerbaijan announced that Armenia has refused to participate in a tripartite meeting in Brussels. How do you interpret this?
Ararat Mirzoyan: During the meeting held in Prague, an agreement was reached regarding the next meeting. We continue to adhere to this agreement and again express our willingness to organize a meeting between the Prime Minister of Armenia, the President of Azerbaijan, the President of France and the President of the European Council within acceptable terms. We believe that the meeting held in Prague in this format was quite effective and important for the process of normalization of relations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. The Armenian side, as before, is interested in the regulation of relations.
Armenpress: Baku is again voicing its claims about carrying out the demarcation process based on historical maps. What is Yerevan’s position on the matter?
A.M.: Such statements violate the commitment made in Prague and Sochi to advance the demarcation efforts between the two countries based on the UN Charter and the Alma-Ata Declaration.
Within the framework of that commitment, the delimitation and demarcation efforts must be carried out on the basis of the legal acts that existed at the time of the collapse of the USSR in 1991 and had legal force and significance, and on the basis of the official documents of the structures that have the proper authority to carry out the mapping, make maps and publish maps as of the same date. Accordingly, to speak of historical maps is, to say the least, unclear, both in terms of definition and content.
It should also be emphasized the danger of the general rhetoric of historical maps for the independence of our countries, because if we focus on historical maps, it may turn out that the territories of both the Republic of Armenia and even more so the Republic of Azerbaijan have been the territories of other states for centuries.
In this context, I would like to draw your attention to one more circumstance: Twice in Sochi in 2021 and 2022 and in Brussels on April 6, an agreement was reached that the creation of the commissions primarily aimed to secure the border. After the creation of the respective commissions, in September 2022, a new aggression was carried out against the Republic of Armenia and new territories were occupied by Azerbaijan, which calls into question not only the agreements and Baku’s desire to respect international law, but also its intentions toward the work of these commissions in general.
Armenpress: The President of Azerbaijan has claimed that Armenia has recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.
A.M.: We have addressed this question many times. The President of Azerbaijan constantly mentions in his public statements that Armenia has recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan, but never once has he said that Azerbaijan also recognizes the territorial integrity of Armenia. Does this fact and the mention of various “historical” maps mean that Azerbaijan does not recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia? And has ambitions for the territories of the Republic of Armenia?
The President of Azerbaijan also has stated that peace has been established around his country and there is no danger of escalation, then in response to another question, he states that if Armenia does not sign the peace treaty, there will be no peace. This means that, from this point on, the President of Azerbaijan is squarely responsible for any possible escalation, especially since Armenia is fully involved in substantive discussions to establish peace.
Armenpress: How would you assess the ongoing efforts to draft a peace agreement?
A.M.: As you know, we have submitted our proposals to Azerbaijan regarding the settlement of relations or the draft peace treaty and we only received their response yesterday. So the discussions are ongoing. We hope to reach an agreement on this issue as soon as possible, and the mediation efforts of our international partners can also play an important role in this process.
Armenpress: Azerbaijan also has claimed that Armenia is refusing to provide accurate maps of minefields and continues to place new mines in the regions adjacent to Nagorno-Karabakh, resulting in many casualties. What is your response to that?
A.M.: As you know, the Republic of Armenia has unilaterally transferred to Azerbaijan all the minefield maps it has in its possession, despite the lack of such a commitment both within the framework of tripartite agreements and international law. Furthermore, we have expressed our willingness to cooperate with international partners to support the decoding of the transferred maps.
At the same time, I consider it necessary to emphasize that mines were placed in Nagorno-Karabakh and neighboring regions during the first Karabakh war, and this was mainly carried out by Azerbaijan, which controlled these areas during the first war. Calls for cooperation from the Armenian side remained unanswered and, moreover, Azerbaijan created obstacles to the de-mining efforts in all possible ways. In 2017, as a result of the manipulation of the question of providing assistance to Armenia in this arena, Azerbaijan even blocked the activity of the OSCE Yerevan office.
In 2019, the International Committee of the Red Cross registered in the report that during its mission, 747 people fell victim to mines in Nagorno Karabakh, 59 percent of whom were civilians. This was based on data by Nagorno Karabakh authorities, which started calculating the number of victims from mine explosions since 2004.
Regarding Azerbaijan’s publications that the Armenian side has placed Armenian-made mines in Nagorno-Karabakh, I must record that the displayed mines were not discovered by the Azerbaijani side in Nagorno-Karabakh, but rather in 2021-22 in the occupied sovereign territories of the Republic of Armenia. Azerbaijan is now trying to use those mines for propaganda purposes. We do not deny that Armenia’s Armed Forces have placed mines in the sovereign territory of Armenia and this is due to the constant and elevated risk of new military aggressions by Azerbaijan, which we witnessed in May and November of 2021, and in September 2022.
During the same period, Azerbaijan also carried out similar aggressive actions in Nagorno-Karabakh, particularly in February and August of this year, thus proving that the population of Nagorno-Karabakh needs self-defense forces in order to prevent ethnic cleansing. As for the accusations coming from Azerbaijan that Armenian Armed Forces units continue to be stationed in Nagorno-Karabakh, this also does not correspond to reality in any way. In order to verify the authenticity of our claim, Prime Minister Pashinyan even offered to send an international fact-finding mission to Nagorno-Karabakh, which was rejected by Azerbaijani President Aliyev.
Armenpress: How do you generally assess the current situation in the region?
A.M.: We regret to note that despite the ongoing negotiations in different arena, Azerbaijan’s extremist and bellicose statements, groundless accusations against the Armenian side and threats to use force are continuing. In addition, the Azerbaijani armed forces continue their presence on the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia, and periodically provocative military actions take place on the part of Azerbaijan.
Based on these facts, the situation remains extremely tense, and all our international partners must make additional efforts to curb Azerbaijan’s ambitions and preserve the fragile peace in the South Caucasus.
The Armenian side, as before, is ready to make all efforts to find mutually acceptable solutions and to establish long-term and stable peace in the region.