YEREVAN, MARCH 14, ARTSAKHPRESS. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan commented on Azerbaijan’s policy on “returning” the so-called Azerbaijani refugees to Armenia. Pashinyan said that Azerbaijan has launched a new phase of aggressive policy.
“This is yet another proof that Azerbaijan has territorial aspirations for the sovereign territories of Armenia,” Pashinyan said at a press conference. “Actually, to be honest, this is precisely why the negotiations process on Nagorno Karabakh entered a deadlock, because it was obvious that Azerbaijan doesn’t have any intention to abandon its aggressive actions under any circumstance. And this constitutes an illegal and explicit encroachment against the sovereign territory of Armenia, which contradicts the agreements and statements made in Prague and Sochi. This means that Azerbaijan has launched a new phase of aggressive policy.”
Pashinyan noted that very often the forcibly displaced people of Hadrut are protesting outside the government headquarters in Yerevan. “And they are very right to do so, because, for example, one of the terms of the trilateral statement is about the return of internally displaced persons and refugees to Nagorno Karabakh and adjacent regions under the auspices of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees. So far no one has offered the people of Hadrut to return to their homes, and this is a gross violation of the trilateral statement by Azerbaijan. We’ve always raised this issue and will continue doing so. The same goes for the Armenians who were forcibly displaced from Shushi. Furthermore, representatives of Nakhijevan – now depopulated from Armenians – are raising questions before the government of Armenia, saying that the government is impeding them from protecting their rights. I know about the major campaign of destroying the Armenian cultural heritage that took place in Nakhijevan. Nakhijevan was consistently depopulated from Armenians starting in the 19th century, not a single Armenian was left there until the Soviet times. You know about the deportations of Armenians in Baku, Sumgait, Kirovabad, Shahumyan, Getashen, and the Armenian government, we, have never obstructed them from pursuing their rights, because this is about hundreds of thousands of people. Neither have we encouraged them to do so, perhaps that was our mistake, but we haven’t obstructed them either,” Pashinyan said.
PM Pashinyan said there’ve been no cases of forced displacements of Azerbaijanis from Armenia. “We have documents preserved in our archives showing that the Soviet Armenian authorities paid major compensations to the Azerbaijanis, which means that basically they themselves decided to leave, also due to the general geopolitical situation, but there’ve been no massacres of Azerbaijanis in Armenia. Whereas in Baku and Sumgait there were massacres of Armenians, you know about Shahumyan region. I was recently visiting a village in Armenia and it turned out that 100 percent of the population there are refugees from Azerbaijan who were forcibly displaced, and they brought what they could at that moment with them,” Pashinyan said, adding that the Armenians who’ve lived for thousands of years in Nakhijevan, Shahumyan, Hadrut, Shushi, Kirovabad, Shamkhor, Baku and Sumgait, as well as other regions, have the right to protect their rights, including to demand compensation.
