Your trusted source

Ishkhan Saghatelyan, a member of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation (ARF) Armenia Supreme Council and an opposition Hayastan faction MP, claims Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s latest remarks confirm his regime’s plans to denationalize Armenia.

In an interview on Wednesday, Aliyev reiterated that Armenia not only had to change its constitution, but also ensure the return of Azerbaijanis who lived there until the late 1980s, stop purchasing weapons and agree to disband the OSCE Minsk Group on Artsakh.

Baku also wants to add clauses to the draft peace treaty requiring the two countries to withdraw international lawsuits filed against each other and ban the deployment of third-party forces to the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.

“Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s statements confirm, yet again, that Armenia's denationalization plan is being discussed rather than a peace treaty,” Saghatelyan wrote on Facebook on Thursday. “These demands are aimed at destroying the Armenian identity.”

He underscored that the issue of the return of Azerbaijanis who lived on Armenian territory cannot be equated with the that of restoring the rights of Armenians who fled Artsakh due to the threat of genocide.

“If Azerbaijan wishes to raise this issue, it should be discussed in the context of the rights of Armenians who were forcibly displaced and fled the massacres in Baku and Sumgait,” the MP stressed.

“The Artsakh Armenians’ right of return and their status should be high on the agenda of any negotiator guided by Armenian interests. Only bringing up the Artsakh issue at the negotiations and persistently defending our rights can stop Azerbaijan's new demands and aggression. Otherwise, Aliyev's statements confirm once again that the appeasement policy towards Azerbaijan will lead to new and tougher demands,” he added.