Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Tuesday announced in the parliament that Armenia, having accepted the Madrid Principles in 2007 as the basis for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict, has recognized Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.
Opposition MP Artur Khachatryan asked why there is no mention of the right to self-determination of the Nagorno-Karabakh people in the section of the report on the implementation of the Armenian government's 2021-2026 program, while in the latter the right to self-determination was noted as one of the bases for the settlement of the problem.
Pashinyan responded that the whole problem is that in the respective negotiation legacy he received in 2018, there is no concept of "Nagorno-Karabakh people," but a concept of "entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh."
"These words are very important. Yes, the people are a constitutional subject according to the Helsinki Act, all other acts. The population is not a constitutional subject; that is, it is not a subject of sovereignty. And secondly, if we say self-determination, from whom and where do we self-determine? For example, why don't we say Armenia to self-determine because Armenia was self-determined by the 1991 Almaty Declaration. From whom did it self-determine? From the Soviet Union because it was a part of the Soviet Union," explained the Armenian PM.
He added that before 2007, Armenia had had a concept related to this matter.
"The concept was that Nagorno-Karabakh, like others, self-determines from the Soviet Union. And there was a theory that Nagorno-Karabakh was never part of Azerbaijan. In 2007, the Madrid principles appeared, where it was recorded that the adjustment of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and the whole process should be agreed with Azerbaijan. Why should it be agreed with Azerbaijan if we [i.e., Armenia] do not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan? And we have recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan according to the Madrid Principles. I have said that it is a problem when the content of our negotiations and the public discourse do not correspond. We have recognized, but we didn't say, and all the wars, fights were related to it," said the Armenian premier.
He added that the subject of self-determination is the one who wants to self-determine, and Nagorno-Karabakh, whereas the latter was left out of the negotiation process in 1998. According to Pashinyan, after Nagorno-Karabakh was left out of the negotiation process, the right to self-determination remained simply written in the Helsinki Final Act.
"I have an analysis and I say that if we do not face this reality, it will not work," added Pashinyan.
MP Khachatryan countered the Prime Minister, noting that the latter equates self-determination and independence, while according to the definition of the Helsinki Act, self-determination means something completely different: for example, Armenia can self-determine and decide that it no longer needs a parliamentary republic, but a theocracy. According to the lawmaker, this is the whole logic of the Helsinki Act.
PM Pashinyan responded that Azerbaijan said the same thing throughout the negotiation process.
"They also said that self-determination does not mean that there should be an independent state. They also said that the subject of this self-determination is not only the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh, but also the Azerbaijanis, they said that the Azerbaijanis should also decide. That is why I am talking about the terminology ‘people-population.’ I said in 2019 that the negotiator of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue should be the representative of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh, as the people of Nagorno-Karabakh did not vote in our parliamentary elections, therefore, I do not have a mandate [in Karabakh]," said the Armenian PM.
Also, Khachatryan asked Pashinyan what the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh is in his opinion.
Pashinyan replied: in the logic of the MP's theory on the right to self-determination, unless today's status is defined, there can be no talk of future status.
