Alen Simonyan reticent about Karabakh’s status 

azatutyun.am: Parliament speaker Alen Simonian on Tuesday pointedly declined to say whether Armenia will champion Nagorno-Karabakh’s right to self-determination in negotiations on a peace treaty with Azerbaijan.

Responding to Azerbaijani proposals to negotiate such a treaty, the Armenian government has said that the question of Karabakh’s status must also be on the agenda of the talks. But it has not publicly clarified its position on the status or a mechanism for determining it.

Simonian, who is a key political ally of Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian, was similarly reticent about the issue when he spoke to RFE/RL’s Armenian Service.

Asked whether Pashinian’s administration could recognize Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan, he said: “As head of the legislative branch, I cannot be involved in the negotiating process or somehow predetermine it. The foreign minister, the head of the government will answer this question.”

Simonian also would not be drawn on the reason for Yerevan’s failure to mention the Karabakh Armenians’ right to self-determination it its written proposals on the peace talks communicated to Baku.

“The Armenian proposal is a proposal regarding the status, but that proposal regarding the status is a subject of discussions,” he said vaguely.

Speaking in the Armenian parliament on April 13, Pashinian said that the international community is pressing Armenia to “lower a bit the bar on the question of Nagorno-Karabakh’s status” and recognize Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity. He signaled Yerevan’s intention to make such concessions to Baku, drawing strong criticism from his political opponents and Karabakh’s leadership.

The authorities in Stepanakert made clear that the Karabakh Armenians will never agree to live under Azerbaijani rule. Armenian opposition leaders charged, for their part, that Pashinian has agreed to Azerbaijani control over the disputed territory.

The opposition went on to launch daily street protests in Yerevan aimed at forcing Pashinian to step down.

“You must quit in order for Artsakh (Karabakh) to remain Armenian,” Ishkhan Saghatelian, one of the protest leaders, appealed to the prime minister as thousands of opposition supporters again marched through Yerevan on Tuesday. Pashinian and his political allies have rejected the opposition demands.

Simonian said the ruling political team won a popular mandate to govern Armenia for the next five years in parliamentary elections held last June. He also rejected the opposition criticism of the government’s Karabakh policy.

“What does the opposition propose? Nothing,” said the speaker.

Joint extraordinary session of CSTO PA standing commissions held in online format

On May 17, the RA NA Vice President Hakob Arshakyan took part in the joint extraordinary session of the CSTO PA Standing Committees on Political Affairs and International Cooperation, on Defence and Security and on Socioeconomic and Legal Affairs via videoconferencing.

The members of the RA NA delegation to the CSTO PA Andranik Kocharyan, Gevorg Papoyan, Aleksey Sandikov and Shirak Torosyan also took part in the session.

Welcoming the participants, Hakob Arshakyan expressed conviction that during the session effective work will be done.

The NA Vice President touched upon the CSTO Jubilee Summit held in Moscow, which was dedicated to the 30^th anniversary of signing of the Collective Security Treaty and the 20^th anniversary of the Collective Security Treaty Organization. As Hakob Arshakyan has assessed, during the Summit the heads of the countries discussed in detail the problems of the organization, referred to the achievements and omissions, as well as outlined the further steps.

“I think that we’ll remain faithful to the same benchmark, and the existing agreements will increase our joint efforts of filling in with concrete content the real contribution of the CSTO Parliamentary Assembly in strengthening and expanding the multi-lateral cooperation of our countries in the Organization,” the Deputy Speaker of Parliament underscored.

During the session the joint steps against the international terrorism, the perspectives of the PA activities in 2021-2025 and other agenda items.

During the discussion of the item of the application of Parliament of the Arab Republic of Syria to the Parliamentary Assembly and giving an observer’s status to this state in the CSTO PA, the RA NA Vice President Hakob Arshakyan reaffirmed the position of the Armenian side connected with that, noting that the RA National Assembly has no objections in that issue.

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