MOSCOW, June 26 Statements by the Secretary of the Security Council of Armenia Armen Grigoryan’s alleged “transfer” of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan by Russia is an outright lie, said the first deputy chairman of the State Duma Committee on CIS Affairs, Konstantin Zatulin.
Previously, Grigoryan accused the Russian Federation of allegedly “transferring” Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.
“Mr. Grigoryan is an even greater Russophobe than his employer Nikol Pashinyan, and in a number of cases he anticipates or makes public in his language what is on his boss’s mind. In this case, we are talking about outright lies,” Zatulin said.
The deputy noted that Karabakh was not only unnecessary for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, but also “harmful internally,” so he preferred to follow the lead of his Western friends.
“He put Russia’s peacekeeping mission in Nagorno-Karabakh in a difficult position. This, apparently, was the condition of his new friendship with the West, because the West does not need Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh. As, indeed, Armenia’s membership in the CSTO or the presence of a Russian base in Gyumri. These are, apparently, the next issues in line, and this is in no way hidden by Mr. Pashinyan’s supporters and himself,” Zatulin emphasized.
Nagorno-Karabakh announced its unilateral secession from the Azerbaijan SSR 35 years ago. After the collapse of the USSR and the armed conflict with Azerbaijan (1992-1994), the region existed for many years as an unrecognized republic inhabited by Armenians. In September 2020, fighting resumed in Karabakh. With the mediation of Moscow, on the night of November 10, the parties agreed to cease fire. The Armenian side lost all areas around Nagorno-Karabakh and a number of territories that were part of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Region during Soviet times. Russian peacekeepers are stationed in the region.
After a many-month blockade of Karabakh and almost three years after the second war in the region, Baku began a military operation there on September 19, 2023, which lasted one day. As a result, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev stated that the country had restored its territorial integrity, and the de facto authorities of the region announced the “self-dissolution” of the unrecognized republic from January 1, 2024. From September 24 to the end of the month, more than 100 thousand residents left Karabakh for Armenia. In 2022, Yerevan and Baku, through the mediation of Russia, the United States and the EU, began discussing a future peace treaty. At the end of May last year, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said that Yerevan is ready to recognize the sovereignty of Azerbaijan within Soviet borders, that is, together with Karabakh.