Armenian MP Aghajanyan at OSCE PA: "Azerbaijan Does Not Genuinely Share Our Peace Agenda"
The Head of Armenia’s parliamentary delegation, Chairman of the Parliament’s Standing Committee on Foreign Relations Eduard Aghajanyan, delivered a speech during the autumn meeting of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly, the Armenian Parliament’s press service said.
The Armenian MP delivered remarks about “three major military attacks by Azerbaijan, the latest being in mid-September this year, as a result of which the Azerbaijani troops occupied about 180 square kilometers territory of Armenia”. Referring to the Azerbaijani justifications for these acts, such as “imaginary military provocations of Armenia and the lack of delimited border between Armenia and Azerbaijan," Aghajanyan drew the attention of the Assembly to practical aspects of, as quoted by him, baseless accusations.
“From 2010 to 2021 included, the average military budget of Azerbaijan has been sixfold that of Armenia. So, what Azerbaijan colleagues expect you to believe is that an army at least six times smaller than theirs is continuously engaging in military provocations. This is insulting to logic and intelligence”, he noted.
He also pointed out that the argument of the absence of a delimited border is even more absurd and, overall, a dangerous narrative as it makes the principle of territorial integrity completely pointless "because if there is no border, then there is no identified territory."
“Dear colleagues, I would have preferred to use this platform to engage in a constructive dialogue with the delegation from Azerbaijan, but unfortunately, they still do not genuinely share our peace agenda. Therefore, we will ensure that our OSCE colleagues are duly informed about the actual situation in South Caucasus, expecting adequate reactions to the blatant aggression by Azerbaijan", he added.
Armenian MP Karapetyan at OSCE PA: "The De-blocking of Communications Should Take Place in Spirit of Ending Conflict and Not Isolation"
Armenian MP Maria Karapetyan gave a speech at the autumn session of the OSCE Parliamentary Assembly. She particularly referred to unblocking the economic and transport links in the South Caucasus.
She noted: “Azerbaijan has so far halted back the de-blocking of all economic and transport links and insists on a special connection through Armenia without security and customs oversight of Armenia: a special corridor as they call it. To justify this claim, Azerbaijan refers to the Lachin corridor stipulated by November 9 statement, which Armenia uses to transport goods and humanitarian aid from Armenia to Nagorno-Karabakh. The Lachin corridor is indeed not a road; it is a special humanitarian corridor. It leads only to Nagorno-Karabakh and does not go anywhere else onward. It leads to a dead end.”
Karapetyan underlined that Armenia is ready to open all its roads to Azerbaijan. However, while Armenia can agree to outsource the border and customs to a third-party service provider, it would be right that the Armenian officers would control the Armenian border.
“And most importantly, the de-blocking of all transport and economic links should happen in the spirit of ending the conflict and starting cooperation and not in the spirit of isolation," she added.
