Clearly State That Any Status of Artsakh Within Azerbaijan Cannot Be Acceptable: Opposition MP to Mirzoyan

I want you to clearly state that any status of Artsakh within Azerbaijan cannot be acceptable; otherwise, we subject Artsakh to yet another ethnic cleansing and depopulation. This was stated today, on March 21, by opposition MP Anna Grigoryan, addressing Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan during a meeting of the National Assembly's Foreign Relations Committee.

"Secondly, are you planning to discuss the issue of de-occupation? You said you presented a package to Azerbaijan, which Azerbaijan rejected. What does that package contain? Next, just a few days ago in Syunik, in Nerqin Hand, Azerbaijanis have made progress up to one kilometer; is this a favorable condition for us to start delimitation and demarcation?" asked the opposition MP.

In response, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan stated, "It is not that we do not know what we want to say and that we must echo different things at your suggestion or under your pressure like a recitation. We say things when we find it appropriate and in the words that we find suitable. We find it appropriate not out of stubbornness, but because we think that is how the current international situation, the possible and impossible, the political space and time allow it. I would very much like there to be a platform where we could discuss various issues, and these issues would remain within the borders of Armenia. Unfortunately, that platform does not exist, nor can it exist. I can only say the words I can say that will not lead to other developments."

Regarding the issue of delimitation, the Foreign Minister mentioned that if the conditions for delimitation had been met, the delimitation work would have already begun. "We continue to work in the direction as stated in the trilateral statement from Sochi on November 26, to raise the level of security and stability on the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, to take measures in that direction, and then to proceed to the delimitation work, accordingly the establishment of a commission. We are not rejecting anything we have written, but as you noted, negotiations in this regard have not yet started, we have appealed to the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group to organize negotiations based on the UN Charter and, of course, the Helsinki Final Act," said Ararat Mirzoyan.