ArmInfo.Armenia's Premier Nikol Pashinyan, who once again found himself in difficult situation under Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev's pressure, has now decided to raise the issue of forcibly displaced Artsakh Armenians - as usual, too late, stated Levon Zurabyan, Vice-Chairman of the Armenian National Congress (ANC).
In this context he recalled Point 7 of the Trilateral Statement of November 9, 2020, which reads:
"Internally displaced persons and refugees shall return to the territory of Nagorno Karabakh and adjacent regions under the control of the Agency of the UN High Commissioner for Refugees."
"And now Armenia's authorities, with a 2-year delay, have recalled that this point has unilaterally been implemented in the case of Azerbaijani refugees, with none of the displaced Artsakh Armenians returned to their homeland. The question is: why has not this issue been raised for such a long period, and Armenia's authorities have now focused on it? The answer to the first part of this question is easy: Pashinyan's unwillingness to provoke Aliyev with 'unnecessary' questions," he said.
President Aliyev, inspired by Pashinyan's "mental incompetence," recently raised the issue of returning Azerbaijani refugees to Armenia and is already issuing threats if this demand is not satisfied.
"The masterminds behind this new propaganda think that by raising this issue they have embarrassed Azerbaijan and Russia, both of which signed the Trilateral Statement but have failed to respect this point. But they cannot understand Armenia's authorities are even more embarrassed, as they their behavior has turned out to be that of a 'nail-head'. In fact, they are perfectly aware that they are raising the issue in a way that would enable them to shift the responsibility for the disgraceful failure unto the former authorities," Mr Zurabyan said.
He is also critical of the ethnographer Hranush Kharatyan, who referred to a letter by the refugees from Artsakh and raised the issue of implementing Point 7 of the Trilateral Statement.
"Of course, no criticism against Nikol Pashinyan, who signed the Statement but has not done anything to implement it. And it is the former authorities that are to blame. Here is what Ms Kharatyan said: 'No Armenian authorities were willing or capable - or on purpose - to put the issue of refugees on the special agenda. For 32 years, during all the negotiations over Artsakh, a representative of Azerbaijani internally displaced people, refugees, was always present because it is their fate, and those people were negotiators, not observers. Has the problem of any refugees in Armenia been ever discussed outside Armenia? 32 years have passed. I think we have committed a crime against those people'," Mr Zurabyan said.
As regards Ms Kharatyan's defending Armenian refugees from the Armenian authorities' "criminal" policy against displaced refugees, he accused her of lying.
According to him, since gaining independence Armenia has been consistent in dealing with the issue of Armenian refugees at all the negotiations.
"In particular, Point 5 of the document on phased settlement of the 1997 Karabakh conflict dealt with the return of all refugees and displaced persons, including those 'displaced after 1987 as a result of the conflict and tension between Armenia and Azerbaijan.' Point 11 dealt with the Shaumyan problem. In the event of the implementation of the agreement, the return of Azerbaijanis to the territory of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region, as well as the Lachin region, and then the cities of Shushi and Lachin controlled by Artsakh was not planned. By the way, let me remind you once again that Azerbaijan gave its official consent to that settlement plan," Mr Zurabyan said.
He stressed that no "Azerbaijani representative of internally displaced persons" or "representative of Azerbaijani refugees" ever attended the negotiations, because "the resolution of the 1992 Helsinki Meeting of OSCE Foreign Ministers provided that the status of Nagorno-Karabakh would be decided at a conference of the Minsk Group countries, with 'elected and other representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh' expected to be invited to. There were some discussions not only with the elected authorities of Nagorno- Karabakh, but also with representatives of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh, the former mayor of Shushi, Mr Bayramov," he said. In this context, Zurabyan recalled that in 1994, at the OSCE Budapest Summit, a resolution was adopted definitively recognizing Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno- Karabakh as full and equal parties to the conflict and negotiations, and not a single representative of the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh has since ever participated in any negotiations to resolve the conflict.
"So we are once again dealing with propaganda lies of this government. Such a shameful behavior of official propaganda should be condemned as shifting the responsibility for Pashinyan's criminal failures unto others and distorting historical facts. I consider it my duty to convey all this to our society. The sooner we understand that today Armenia is ruled by people whose only job is to avoid responsibility for their catastrophic mistakes and blame others the sooner we can put the country on the right track," Zurabyan said.