News - Putin: Legal status of Russian peacekeepers in Karabakh was based solely on 2020 statement

The legal status of Russian peacekeepers in Nagorno-Karabakh was based solely on the November 2020 statement. No peacekeeper status ever emerged, Russian President Vladimir Putin said during a plenary meeting of the Valdai Discussion Club. “After the well-known events and the collapse of the USSR, we know that an ethnic conflict arose, clashes began between Armenians and Azerbaijanis, they began in Sumgait, then spread to Karabakh. This led to the fact that Armenia, not Karabakh, but Armenia took control of Karabakh and seven adjacent regions ... Seven regions of Azerbaijan. This, in my opinion, is almost 20% of the territory of Azerbaijan. All this went on for many decades. I must say, and I will not reveal any secret here, many times over the past 15 years we have offered our Armenian friends to make compromises: to return the five regions around Karabakh to Azerbaijan, to keep two for themselves and thus maintain the territorial connection between Armenia and Karabakh. But our Karabakh friends told us time after time: “No, this will create certain threats for us.” We, in turn, told them, Azerbaijan is growing, the economy is developing, it is an oil and gas producing country, there are over 10 million people, let’s compare the potentials... While there is such an opportunity, we need to find this compromise. For our part, we will carry out this decision within the framework of the UN Security Council, we will guarantee the security of this naturally emerging Lachin corridor between Armenia and Karabakh, and we will guarantee the security of the Armenians living in this territory. But no, they told us: “No, we cannot agree to this,” and what will you do: “We will fight.” Things eventually came to armed clashes in 2020. Then, I also suggested it to our friends and colleagues. By the way, President Aliyev will probably not be offended by me, but at some point an agreement was reached that the Azerbaijani troops would stop. To be honest, I thought the issue was resolved. I called Yerevan and suddenly heard: “No, let them leave that insignificant part of Karabakh where the Azerbaijani troops have reached”... I said, well, what will you do, again the same phrase: “We will fight”... Well, listen, now in a few days, they will go to the rear to your fortifications in the Agdam area and everything will be over. Do you understand? Yes. And what will you do? We will fight. OK… Well, everything turned out the way it did. In the end, we nevertheless agreed with Azerbaijan that after reaching the Shushi line and Shushi itself, hostilities would be stopped. A corresponding statement was signed in November 2020 on the suspension of hostilities and the deployment of our peacekeepers. And here is the next very important point: the legal status of our peacekeepers was based solely on this statement. No peacekeeper status ever emerged. I won't say why. Azerbaijan believed that this was not necessary, but signing without Azerbaijan was pointless. Therefore, I repeat, the entire status of the peacekeepers was based solely on this statement. And the rights of the peacekeepers consisted only in monitoring compliance with the ceasefire. All. The peacekeepers had no other rights there. This precarious state lasted for some time,” he noted.