Pashinyan responds to Aliyev’s remarks on peace process

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has responded to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s remarks regarding the peace process.

Aliyev said in an interview with VGTRK and RIA Novosti earlier that Baku and Yerevan have not agreed on two clauses of the future peace treaty – withdrawal of international lawsuits against each other, and the presence of third countries on the border. Aliyev has repeatedly claimed that in order to sign a peace treaty with Yerevan, it is important that Armenia put an end to “territorial claims” against Azerbaijan in its constitution and other legislative acts, and that the activities of the OSCE Minsk Group be terminated.

“We continue to be constructively engaged in the discussions around the peace treaty with Azerbaijan, and we have conveyed proposals on the two outstanding articles of the peace treaty to Azerbaijan for more than a month now, and we haven’t yet had a response,” Pashinyan said in an interview with Armenpress on Thursday, December 19.

“We propose the article about the non-deployment of the forces of third countries to cover the delimitated parts of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, and this is logical, because in those parts the risk of escalation is significantly decreasing if not minimizing. Therefore, after the complete delimitation, there won’t be the need for the presence of a third force in any part of the Armenia-Azerbaijan border, and the Republic of Armenia is proposing this logic.”

Pashinyan also weighed in on the withdrawal of lawsuits filed against each other.

“When a peace treaty is signed this is logical, thus, the idea is acceptable for us,” he said.

“There are two nuances here: one of them is that there must be an understandable prospect for bilaterally resolving the individual humanitarian issues currently under discussion in international courts, and secondly, it must be clear that after withdrawing the disputes in international platforms regarding other issues the sides shall not put forward the same issues in the bilateral relations agenda and make them a source of lasting escalations.”