Denial of Artsakh's self-determination will automatically label Armenia an "aggressor," Former Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs of Armenia Shavarsh Kocharyan noted.

Making an excursus to the origin of the concepts of territorial integrity and right of nations to self-determination and their reflection in the UN Charter, the former deputy minister said that, contrary to popular opinion, these concepts do not contradict each other.

Kocharyan noted that the parties to the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict have two diametrically opposed positions.

"Azerbaijan responded to Artsakh's realized right with massacres, deportations and large-scale aggression.

"However, attempts to turn this into a "territorial dispute" put Armenia in an extremely difficult position. If Armenia lowers the bar and gives up the right to self-determination, it automatically takes the label of aggressor.

"What are the consequences? The aggressor must be punished. In international practice, this is the expulsion of the population of the aggressor, both from the occupied territories, and the territories taken away and given to the victim of aggression as compensation for the damage.

"Germany is a typical example, 12-14 million Germans were displaced by World War II from Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary, Yugoslavia, and Romania. Kaliningrad was lost to Germany.

"Czechoslovakia, Lithuania, and Poland gained territories. Poland, at the expense of part of the reparations received territories. Holland also got the territories, but Germany bought them back later," Shavarsh Kocharyan noted.

"Then there are reparations, i.e. compensation for the damage. For the first time it was applied after World War I.

"Forced labor of prisoners, this was practiced after World War 2, when German prisoners were serving their labor service. Even in Yerevan, there are facilities built by German prisoners. Restrictions in the military sphere, which apply to the army, equipment, quotas, including for the purchase of weapons. Japan and Germany, a member of NATO and the EU, have been under these sanctions since 1945. The search and trial of war criminals. Control over domestic life so that revanchism does not raise its head.

"What we see in Aliyev's statements is the beginning of this process. Rejecting self-determination means taking the label of aggressor with all the dangerous consequences. We see that Turkey and Azerbaijan have directed all their steps toward trying to recognize Armenia as an aggressor, and the authorities are helping them to do so," said Shavarsh Kocharyan.