YEREVAN, NOVEMBER 4, ARMENPRESS. What happened during the First and Second Artsakh wars clearly shows that the Armenians of Artsakh cannot live under Azerbaijani control, the Armenian Deputy Minister of Foreign Affairs Vahe Gevorgyan told lawmakers during parliamentary committee debates on the 2022 state budget.

Hayastan faction MP Armen Rustamyan asked the Deputy FM on “remedial recognition”. “I am deliberately not saying ‘remedial secession’, I am saying ‘remedial recognition’, so that it doesn’t oppose the right to self-determination,” he said, asking whether or not this formula is under discussion.

“What happened during both the first and second Artsakh wars clearly shows that the Armenians of Artsakh cannot live under Azerbaijani control. That is, because [Azerbaijan] is in fact engaged in a policy of extermination. The best proof of this is the total absence of Armenians in the territories presently controlled by Azerbaijan,” the Deputy FM said.

Deputy FM Gevorgyan said that the principle mentioned by the lawmaker is getting firm substantiation over this fact.

“And I think that this approach, that the Armenians of Artsakh are facing annihilation under Azerbaijani control, this truthful, reliable and accurate narrative is being advanced by us in both our discourse and during negotiations,” he said.  

Editing and Translating by Stepan Kocharyan