Armenian PM: Karabakh can’t give up territories to Azerbaijan and sacrifice security

Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan says Nagorno Karabakh cannot risk giving up surrounding territories to Azerbaijan and jeopardize its security.

Pashinyan made the comment while live on TV, and touched on a number of other issues, including deaths in the Armenian military in peacetime conditions and the referendum on constitutional amendments.

• How to solve the Karabakh conflict? Armenian PM, Azerbaijani president meet, discuss in public

• 3 years since the Karabakh April War: what has it changed?

Karabakh – “there is no question of territories – there is a question of security”

Pashinyan called the recent meeting with Ilham Aliyev at the Munich Security Conference on February 15 a turning point. He also said that since May 2018, Azerbaijan has been trying to convince the international community that Armenia has taken a destructive position on Karabakh, in response to the PM’s insistence that the Karabakh side be represented in the negotiation process.

“Our conversation very clearly showed to the international community that Armenia takes a constructive position on the Karabakh issue, and Azerbaijan takes a destructive one, approaching racism,” the Armenian Prime Minister noted.

He said that a new approach to the Karabakh issue is being developed, which he conditionally called the “Munich principles.”

“I stated and will repeat it again: Karabakh cannot give up its security… We never said that we were ready to cede territories.  The defense army controls them not for pleasure, but because there was no other possibility.”

Deaths in the Armenian military

Pashinyan said the presence of a criminal subculture among employees in the army is one of the reasons for the frequent cases of military deaths in peace conditions,

 “Since the fight against the criminal subculture was not conducted on the scale on which I instructed, two responsible persons were dismissed from their posts.”

This topic has become one of the most discussed in society, because 13 people have already died in the first month and a half of 2020.

Speaking about the resignations, Pashinyan had in mind the head of the Military Police Arthur Baghdasaryan and the head of the department of moral and psychological support (“chief political officer”) Aleksan Aleksanyan.

Constitutional referendum

Armenia is going to the polls on April 5 to decide the fate of the current composition of the Constitutional Court. Campaigns for and against have already been launched, and citizens of the country will decide whether or not to terminate the powers of six judges and the head of the Constitutional Court, who took office under the previous government.

• Armenia: the battle for the Constitutional Court. Video

According to the prime minister, distrust has developed over the Constitutional Court in Armenia over many years, and the model that his team offers will help restore confidence:

“What is the difference between the former and the current model?  It is, in particular, that in the previous model candidates for the position of members of the Constitutional Court were nominated by the President of Armenia or the chairman of the National Assembly and he was elected by the parliament.  According to the new model, three candidates for judges of the Constitutional Court are nominated by the president, government and the General Assembly of Judges … While previously members of the Constitutional Court were elected for life, now it is clearly stated that their term of office is 12 years, and the same person cannot be a member of the Constitutional Court more than once.”