It was on October 20 that the most discussed and criticized episode after November 9, 2020 appeared, that as if there was an opportunity to stop the war under the conditions of Shushi [city] remaining under Armenian control, but I missed it. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of the Republic of Armenia (RA) stated this at Monday’s meeting of the National Assembly (NA) Inquiry Committee for Studying the Circumstances of the Hostilities Unleashed on September 27, 2020. In his remarks, Pashinyan specifically noted as follows:
Here, then, on October 19, 2020, the RF [(Russian Federation)] president told me that the Azerbaijani side has one more condition: it expects guarantees that the Azerbaijani refugees, who, according to the Azerbaijani side, made up 90 percent of the population of Shushi before the conflict, return to Shushi. For the Russian side, this was an understandable proposal because they were saying that the return of refugees and internally displaced persons to the NK [(Nagorno-Karabakh)] was always included in the settlement plan of the Karabakh conflict, which was on the table many years ago.
This is the reason that after November 9, I announced from the NA rostrum that the Shushi issue was always on the negotiation agenda because if it is said that Azerbaijanis should return to NK, is there a need to clarify that they should return to the settlements in which they have lived before?
They were accusing me that if I agreed for the Azerbaijanis to return to Shushi, it would remain under Armenian control, and even if inhabited by Azerbaijanis, it would be Armenian. To be honest, this wording itself is problematic. But when Shushi's question came up, I tried to find out what the expected guarantees of Azerbaijanis should look like according to the proposed version. As a result of that conversation, it turned out that I have to declare that I agree with the return of Azerbaijani refugees to Shush and other settlements of Karabakh.
The RF President suggested that this issue be put in correlation with the NK status; that is, the issue of the return of NK Azerbaijanis is resolved in the context of the NK status at the same time as the supposed decision on it. I agreed to that wording, but the Azerbaijani side, as before, had rejected it, saying that it was not going to discuss any issues related to the status.
Moreover, according to the proposal made at that time, not only Azerbaijanis living in Shushi, but also all Azerbaijanis would have direct and unhindered access to Shushi. Let's say, 50 thousand Azerbaijanis can come to Shushi as guests, it is not known how many Azerbaijanis live in Shushi, and there cannot be any restrictions here. They can go and stay.
But the most important question: how will their movement be ensured? It turned out that, for example, a new road connecting Shushi to Azerbaijan should be built so that Azerbaijanis do not need to use the Lachin corridor or any other road to reach Shushi. That road, for example, it could be via Kubatlu; that is, according to Azerbaijan's proposal at the time, Shushi would have at least a 95 percent Azerbaijani population, with no restrictions or controls on further additions. They would have a separate road connecting Shushi to Azerbaijan, which would be under their control. This means that Azerbaijani armed units can also be there. This, in turn, means that it was, without exaggeration, about handing over Shushi to Azerbaijan.
At that time, one of the practical reasons for not accepting that proposal was the following: it meant that the Lachin corridor would not work because the Azerbaijanis could close it at any time because Shushi would not enter the Lachin corridor, and the Lachin corridor would pass a few meters beyond Shushi.
Recent events have proved my prediction at the time by circumstances known to you all. But even this was not all the talk of October 19.
In the context of that day's proposal, a new idea was sounded as an additional condition for ending the war. [Russian] peacekeepers would be deployed not only in Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor, but also in Meghri [city of Armenia] to ensure the communication of Azerbaijanis with Nakhichevan. I didn't agree to that either. I didn't agree to the creation of a layer in the territory of Armenia that is not under the RA control; that is, a corridor is created, saying that I agree with the road, but not with the corridor.
Thus, the conditions for stopping the war in the context of the proposal of October 19 were as follows: All seven regions come under the control of Azerbaijan, the question of NK status is left undecided, the already lost territories of the NKAO [(Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast )] at that time remain under the control of Azerbaijan; and at that time ,considerable NKAO territories were already under the control of Azerbaijan. Shushi is handed over to Azerbaijan according to the scenario described above, [Russian] peacekeepers are stationed in Meghri, and a corridor is actually created; that is, a layer not under our control, connecting Azerbaijan to Nakhichevan. I could not agree to such conditions, however much I understood the gravity of the situation. Looking back now, I couldn't agree again. If someone says that he would agree, let him announce it out loud.
