In one of the points of your statement, you mentioned the violation of the territorial integrity of the Republic of Armenia, and here you mention that since 2021, hostile forces have repeatedly violated the internationally recognized borders of the Republic of Armenia and occupied territories. However, after the First Artsakh War, our sovereign territory of Artsvashen is still under Azerbaijani control. Why isn’t Artsvashen mentioned here? Isn’t this the violation of territorial integrity you’re talking about? This was raised today, October 6, during the discussion of the text of the statement “On the National Crisis and Failure of Governance” at a meeting of the State and Legal Commission of the National Assembly by Communist Party MP Anush Kloyan, addressing Hayk Mamijanyan, leader of the “I Have the Honor” faction, who presented the statement.
In response, Mamijanyan acknowledged this omission, and if there had been a proposal, it would have been added: “But in the case of this statement, if we consider it in context, we are talking about the occupation of more than 200 square kilometers of our sovereign, internationally recognized territories, according to official data. Here, we are talking about the occupation of our sovereign territories, which occurred as a result of the security shortcomings of your authorities after the 44-day war and their inaction to end this occupation.
The so-called forceful option is only one of the options for liberating the occupied territories, and I am in no way calling for it in my speech. We believe that demarcation and disengagement work should have begun, or at least should have primarily focused on those territories that are vital to us. Our territories are occupied, but if you think about it, the demarcation and disengagement initially took place in a sector that served Azerbaijan’s interests. For a simple reason: our line of defense in the Tavush sector was the strongest, a well-known fact. You destroyed this reality in this area by following Azerbaijan’s request.
There was hope that at least the liberation of the occupied territories would happen later, but that didn’t happen either. According to the commission’s statement, the border demarcation will begin from the Armenia-Azerbaijan-Georgia border intersection and proceed south. In other words, the liberation of our sovereign territories is a priority for the Republic of Armenia, as if this weren’t a priority in the government’s actions,” he said.
Anosh Kloyan noted: “However, we note that during your years in power, you have done nothing to return our sovereign territory of Artsvashen to the Republic of Armenia.”
Mamidzhanyan countered. “In 2012-2014, our border was improved by approximately 500 square kilometers in the Ararat region up to Meghri.” We didn’t raise our voices about this because, in the summer of 2020, your government portrayed the events in Tavush as a victory in World War III, which caused very serious problems. There was no point in standing up and saying that our army was the most combat-ready in the region. Let me remind you that Iran and Turkey are also in our region, and then three months later saying that our army had suffered a defeat.