YEREVAN, DECEMBER 22, ARTSAKHPRESS. State Minister of Nagorno Karabakh Ruben Vardanyan gave an interview to the American CBN News, presenting the situation amid the Azerbaijani blockade of Nagorno Karabakh’s only road to the outside world.
“It’s tough, because it’s winter and without gas and with the limited access to food …. we have already put some limitation for people,” Vardanyan said. “We don’t know how long it can continue. … We have a reserve, we prepared some reserve, but, because it was unclear how long it can go, we said, ‘Let’s put, from the beginning, some limits.’”
CBN noted that “ the situation is so dire a group of human rights organizations issued a genocide warning Monday, cautioning how deadly and diabolical the situation could become.”
Vardanyan also discussed Nagorno Karabakh’s Armenian roots and the ongoing quest for independence in Nagorno-Karabakh.
“Despite the political system, whatever happened in the past, in the 20th century, 90% of people [who were] living here [were] Armenian,” he said. “And this is very important to understand.”
Vardanyan said that Armenians of NK have the right to keep their own language, their own culture, their own religion.
“Thirty-four years ago, we got [to] start the fight for independence, and it’s continuing with people who live here. They don’t want to be part of any other country.”
Rather than a religious conflict as some might assume, he said the battle between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan is a fight between a democratic country and a non-democratic and autocratic nation.
“In Azerbaijan, everybody knows they don’t have a democratic system, and we all know … they don’t have … human rights,” Vardanyan said, differentiating between the democratic ideals embraced by Nagorno-Karabakh and the restrictive governmental system in Azerbaijan.
