Former Armenian Ambassador to the Netherlands, diplomat Dzunik Aghajanyan told NEWS.am that no one can force the Armenians of Artsakh to agree to their expulsion from the homeland and to commit suicide, and this will be possible if the authorities agree to transfer Artsakh to Azerbaijan with an undefined status at the discretion of Baku. In this case, the expulsion of some Armenians from the homeland will be a matter of a few months. 

"I do not know if the public is aware of this or not, but it is inevitable and will mean that the Armenian authorities are subjecting a part of the Armenian people to genocide with their own hands.

I do not agree with certain assessments of the authorities, because the state finds itself in a situation in which the West is accused of holding pro-Russian views, and Russia of holding pro-Western views, when the authorities are not pursuing a pro-Armenian policy. In this case, everyone can attribute all processes to their own discretion and interests.

If the authorities pursue a policy beneficial for Armenia and Artsakh, serving their political, economic, and security interests, no one but the enemy will be able to assess it as pro-state.

The priority issue is the threats and challenges to security and the Artsakh problem. But I haven't seen any drastic pro-Armenian steps being taken in this direction. We have faced serious problems in that sense," Aghajanyan said.

The state is not anybody's property, she said. The authorities come and go for a certain period of time and it is their duty to serve the state interests, not to treat the state as their own apartment and decide which room to rent or give as a property to someone.

"In this sense, both the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution clearly define the circle. Any contract, especially a peace treaty, is years of work. These are not merely declared provisions, there are tremendous problems underneath them, and they must be thoroughly discussed, studied, and a document must be created on the basis of expert discussion, which can only be adopted with public support.

As a conflictologist, I do not remember any peace treaty being formulated and adopted by the authorities within a month and considered legal, legitimate, and acceptable to the people. From this point of view it is simply absurd. There can be no such thing. One does not surrender the territories of a country to anyone in the name of an unrealistic and intangible peace, especially given the threats made by the enemy. This is not peace, but slavery, deprivation of homeland and state. As a result, the authorities and the political units supporting them actually become participants of the Armenian genocide in their own right.

The opinion that Artsakh has never had and has no chance of recognition is absurd. Based on the document discussed in Key West, Artsakh was becoming part of Armenia.

As for the conflict, it is not solved without taking into account the people who are the subject of the conflict. In this case, the priority and decisive is the will of the people of Artsakh, which expressed it back in 1991, using the appropriate legal and legitimate grounds. The question of how the results of the self-determination actions will be recognized is a question of time. The question of how exactly it will be recognized is also to be determined by the people of Artsakh. This is the absolute truth," the former ambassador added.

The diplomat discerned in the Armenian authorities' behavior a desire to disorganize institutional and professional state structures.

"This process relates to the Foreign Ministry as well. These goals are clearly not in favor of the state. In any country it takes years to train personnel and their skills are priceless. Not taking advantage of their potential is a crime," Aghajanyan concluded.