News - Lavrov: Putin did not force Pashinyan to give Karabakh to Azerbaijan

The decision that Karabakh must become part of Azerbaijan was made with the direct participation of the Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov has said. “It is a lie when [political] figures in Yerevan said that by signing an agreement to end the war in November 2020, Putin forced Pashinyan to give Karabakh to Azerbaijan. In this agreement, dated November 10, 2020, it is written that Karabakh is an area of the responsibility of the Russian peacekeeping contingent and there was a common understanding that the dialogue on the final status of Karabakh would continue. However, when a year or a year and a half later, Prime Minister Pashinyan, at some regular European summit in Prague, signed a document that states that Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other within the borders of 1991, in accordance with the Alma-Ata Declaration, the issue was closed. He subsequently used the term again in Brussels. Moreover, in the document in question, which was distributed by the EU, it does not say that Armenia is concerned about the fate of the Armenians who lived in Karabakh, and that and that everyone needs to somehow deal with their fate so that they don’t have to suffer,” Lavrov said.