In an interview with POLITICO Europe, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, answering the question whether he had thought about the humanitarian evacuation of Nagorno Karabakh Armenians, said that talking about the evacuation of Artsakh Armenians means internationally legitimizing the ethnic cleansing of Artsakh.
“We agreed with Azerbaijan that Armenia and Azerbaijan, as I said, mutually recognize each other’s territorial integrity: 29,800 square kilometers and 86,600 square kilometers. And when I gave a press conference in Yerevan after that agreement, and the journalist asked if Azerbaijan’s 86,600 square kilometers also includes Nagorno-Karabakh, I answered that yes, it also includes Nagorno-Karabakh. But I also want to say that this does not mean at all that we have given Azerbaijan a mandate to subject the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh to ethnic cleansing or genocide.”
The journalist asked: “Do you really believe now that a negotiated solution can guarantee the security and rights of Artsakh Armenians when you are under international pressure to agree to a deal that could lead to the withdrawal of Armenians from Artsakh?”
Pashinyan replied that he knows that such rumors are spreading.
“Of course, I don’t know, but the discourse about the evacuation of Artsakh means exactly what I said: agreeing to the ethnic cleansing and depatriation, because these people live in their own homes. Did you realize that when we talk about ethnic cleansing, the instrument of ethnic cleansing does not have to physically destroy people? Any genocide has two parts. One part of it is massacre, the other part is deportation.” he said.
