We have 28 victims in incidents after war – PM Pashinyan

One year has passed since the declaration of the ceasefire on November 9, 2020. How does Armenia assess the implementation of the points of the declaration?

In his answer to this question asked in an interview with the Public TV, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said:

First of all, we must state that the first point of the declaration refers to the cessation of fire and all military operations, and we can state by and large that, yes, the war stopped due to the signing of that declaration. And I would like to say that in this regard I highly appreciate the contribution of the Russian Federation, the President of the Russian Federation Vladimir Putin, to ending the war. I must also state that one of the very important points of the declaration has been fully implemented: there are Russian peacekeepers deployed in Nagorno Karabakh and along the Lachin corridor, whose activities we highly appreciate, who are today key players in ensuring security in Nagorno Karabakh, and this must be recorded.

On the other hand, I must note with regret that, nevertheless, the ceasefire regime is not fully observed in Nagorno Karabakh as well, the peacekeepers have also recorded this, and I hope that a proper investigation into these cases will be carried out, and necessary measures will be taken. Let’s recall the last outrageous cases when a civilian carrying out agricultural work was shot by an Azerbaijani sniper while driving a tractor. Yes, there was a peacekeeper sitting next to him in the tractor, and also the case when we had 5 soldiers wounded.

Unfortunately, I must note that since November 9, we have had many wounded and victims. We have had about 28 victims, in particular, I am speaking about the victims of the incident in the Khtsaberd-Hin Tagher section. There have also been incidents along the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, we have suffered casualties. This, of course, is a very disturbing fact, and I must say that we have also had cases of military operations, in particular, the incident in the Khtsaberd-Hin Tagher section, and the incident in the Sotk-Khoznavar section, which is a gross violation of the trilateral declaration.

I must emphasize that most of our 40 confirmed captives, 90%, have been captured following the November 9 declaration, and have not been released so far, contrary to Article 8 of the statement, which clearly states that prisoners of war, hostages, other detainees must be released. By the way, Azerbaijan’s interpretation of who is a prisoner of war and who is not a prisoner of war is not appropriate at all, because the statement says prisoners of war, hostages, and other detainees, that is, this declaration, this point, in fact, refer to practically everyone held against their will. Moreover, I want to emphasize that there is no difference whether the capture took place before November 9 or after November 9.

The next disturbing fact. I talked about the ceasefire violations in Nagorno Karabakh, I must state that there are also regular ceasefire violations on the Armenian-Azerbaijani border, which is also a gross violation of the provisions of the trilateral declaration. I must also state that despite the November 9 declaration, the right of the Armenian population of Shushi and Hadrut regions to return to their home place has failed to be secured so far.

The next issue that I must emphasize in this context is the following. Again, contrary to the 9th point of the November 9 declaration, the regional communications have not been opened yet. Yes, a lot of work is being done in this direction, and I hope we will achieve concrete results in the near future.

All these, of course, raise some concerns, although, on the other hand, there is no doubt that the November 9 declaration and the deployment of peacekeepers in Nagorno Karabakh are the fundamental achievements. But the violations of the ceasefire regime, the incidents of our soldiers killed in Artsakh after November 9, lead us to the concern that, nevertheless, Azerbaijan has adopted a policy of discrediting the activities of peacekeepers.