News - The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh could “in an ideal world” live under Azerbaijani rule – Paruyr Hovhannisyan

The Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh could “in an ideal world” live under Azerbaijani rule, but the historical experience makes it difficult to imagine this, Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Paruyr Hovhannisyan said in an interview with Reuters around 24 hours after Azerbaijan’s aggression against Artsakh/Nagorno-Karabakh. Earlier, Reuters had published a comment by Vahan Kostanyan, another deputy foreign minister; saying said that “theoretically” the Armenians of Karabakh could live under the rule of Baku. It later turned out that the agency had mixed up the deputy ministers. The Armenian Foreign Ministry clarified that the commentary to Reuters was given not by Vahan Kostanyan, but by Paruyr Hovhannisyan, and his thoughts were “distorted.” “The journalist accepted the mistake and corrected the material,” the Foreign Ministry said. Now the agency quotes Paruyr Hovhannisyan as saying that Armenia understands that the Armenians of Karabakh are open to negotiations with Baku, and that dialogue is crucial. According to him, Armenia has specific security agreements with Russia applicable to such situations.It comes after Artsakh's information headquarters reported that an agreement was reached between Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan with the mediation of Russian peacekeepers on the complete cessation of military operations from 1 p.m. on Wednesday. It also said that an agreement was reached on the withdrawal of the remaining units and servicemen of the RA Armed Forces from the deployment zone of the Russian peacekeeping troops and the dissolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh armed formations, the complete disarmament of the Defense Army, as well as the withdrawal of heavy equipment and weapons from the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh in order to quickly eliminate them. In addition, on Thursday, the representatives of Artsakh and Azerbaijan will meet in Yevlakh, a city in Azerbaijan located about 100 km northeast of Stepanakert, and the issues of ensuring the security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians will be discussed.