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Lawyer Gevorg Danielyan claims the Armenian authorities have to hold a referendum before they could cede four border villages to Azerbaijan.

“I believe the fate that befell Armenia is an inevitable consequence of both its own policy and objective geopolitical developments. Unfortunately, their coincidence was extremely inappropriate but predictable,” he posted on Facebook on Thursday.

"After 2014, when Crimea fell under Russia’s control and the Russian-Ukrainian conflict loomed, Turkey's role in the politics of Russia increased dramatically and became almost indispensable. Turkey managed to simultaneously assume the role of a key NATO member and a major economic and military ally of Russia.

“Without Turkey, Azerbaijan could not have achieved anything in practice, so a convenient moment was chosen, which could have been prevented only by Armenia's reasonable policy. As a result, Azerbaijan got incomparably more that it eyed and still seeks more.

“At present, no foreign political force is interested in further expansionist and militaristic actions of Azerbaijan any more, in particular, the West's interests lie in uninterrupted supplies of gas, oil and exploitation of gold deposits, which it has already achieved," Danielyan noted.

In his words, further territorial changes, with the exception of the Meghri corridor, do not affect Russian interests either. He cited the Russian leader’s statement on the need to use the 1926 map kept in the Russian General Staff for the Armenian-Azerbaijani border delimitation, according to which Armenia has 31,000 square kilometers and no enclaves except Artsvashen.

“Anyway, at this point, the surrender of four villages not only de jure but also de facto will lead to territorial changes, which is possible only through a referendum,” the lawyer stated.