
ArmInfo.On December 2, the Armenian government disclosed a package of documents that served as the basis for negotiations on Nagorno-Karabakh until 2020, but I would like to discuss the 2019 document. "A fairly good document," opposition MP Artur Khachatryan said during a government hour on December 3, asking Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan about Yerevan's reaction to the promising document proposed by the OSCE MG.
"It establishes a mechanism that would allow the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to determine their future legal status through their own free will, which, as noted, would not be subject to any restrictions. That is, the assertions that the referendum was not planned to be held in the NKR, or that the issue of independence could not have been on the agenda, are omitted. Such a document could have considered Armenia as one of the guarantors of Nagorno-Karabakh's security.
I would like to know your reaction to this document during the negotiations, since it was followed by a significant hardening of Armenia's rhetoric, which suggests that the reaction was negative," Khachatryan said.
"In no negotiation package has it ever been written that the referendum you mentioned should take place in Nagorno-Karabakh. On the contrary, it is written that a people's referendum should express the free will of the entire NKR people,'" Pashinyan said. According to him, the entire logic boiled down to the fact that the proposed referendum, according to Baku's interpretation, was supposed to take place throughout the entire territory of Azerbaijan. What does ' the entire population of Nagorno-Karabagh' mean? It also means the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabagh. Furthermore, it was unclear whether the referendum would even take place, and there were no guarantees regarding any status for NK. Meanwhile, the document following the 1996 OSCE Lisbon Summit stated that NK should exercise its right to self-determination and receive autonomous status within Azerbaijan, Pashinyan continued.
"Again, if the proposal was good, why didn't you take this decision at the time? If the proposal was good and you didn't accept it, then you must answer for it before the people," he stated.
According to the Prime Minister, when he asked the OSCE Minsk Group co-chairs whether Nagorno- Karabakh could, according to the document, not be within Azerbaijan, they answered: "Yes, it can If Azerbaijan agrees to this."