Former Minister:  Nagorno-Karabakh issue to remain alive  until  justice restored

ArmInfo.   The Nagorno-Karabakh issue is not closed, it remains alive until the right of return is fulfilled and until justice is restored. Former RA Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian writes about this in his article.  

The article reads as follows: "Yesterday, the Belgian Parliament  adopted a resolution on the Nagorno- Karabakh issue. Among its many  condemnations of Azerbaijan's atrocities and human rights violations,  it calls on Baku to comply with the International Court of Justice  ruling of November 17, 2023 and allow the safe return of Armenians to  their homes under international observation. This resolution  complements two adopted by the European Parliament in 2024, as well  as a recent Swiss parliamentary initiative advocating mediation  between Azerbaijan and the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh. More than  100 British MPs have expressed support for the Swiss peace  initiative, and soon we will also hear from the U.S. House of  Representatives.

Against this backdrop, at a press conference two days ago, Nikol  Pashinyan declared-among numerous other dangerous and illogical  assertions, including the outsourcing of a corridor in Syunik, which  I addressed in a separate article-that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue is  "closed." He stated unequivocally that the region is Azerbaijani  territory and, perhaps most damningly, admitted that his only regret  was not conceding this point earlier. That "mistake," as he called  it, cost thousands of Armenian lives and culminated in the loss of a  major part of the Armenian homeland, along with the forced  displacement of the entire indigenous Armenian population of  Nagorno-Karabakh.  In any functioning democracy, such an admission of  catastrophic miscalculation would have led to immediate resignation  and lasting political disgrace. Instead, Pashinyan clings to power  and attempts to declare an open wound healed.

But truth cannot be so easily erased. The Nagorno-Karabakh issue is  not closed-nor will it ever be-until the rights of the 150,000  Armenians expelled from their ancestral homeland are recognized,  restored, and guaranteed. No press conference and no revisionist  rhetoric can change that fundamental reality.  Pashinyan may wish to  convince the world that Armenia has nothing more to say or do about  Nagorno- Karabakh. His motivations are transparent: to appease  Azerbaijan, to avoid diplomatic confrontation, to deflect  responsibility and to continue to cling to power. His rhetorical  pivot, suggesting that Nagorno- Karabakh was never truly Armenian to  begin with, is a moral and political betrayal of staggering  proportions. It is also historically and legally false.   Nagorno-Karabakh has never been part of an independent Azerbaijani  state. Its Armenian roots stretch back millennia-long before the  formation of modern Azerbaijan. The region declared independence in  1991 under the same Soviet-era legal framework that gave rise to  Armenia and Azerbaijan as post-Soviet republics. 

One day, no doubt, Pashinyan will stand before a court and declare  for having made a mistake in recognizing Nagorno-Karabakh as part of  Azerbaijan at his infamous Prague meeting. But no apology will undo  the damage he has caused. For this, he will never be forgiven by the  Armenian people.  No matter what Pashinyan says or does, the  Nagorno-Karabakh issue is not closed. It remains alive-until the  right of return is fulfilled, and until justice is done for the  victims of ethnic cleansing and forced exile."