In a statement adopted later on Wednesday, the Karabakh parliament said Yerevan must refuse to negotiate until Baku ends truce violations along the Karabakh “line of contact” and the Armenian-Azerbaijani border. It warned that failure to do so “would mean the encouragement of the Azerbaijani side’s aggressive behavior.”
Pashinian said that the soldiers’ deaths were the result of Baku’s pre-planned “military provocation” aimed at undermining his administration’s “efforts to establish peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan and address the issue of the Nagorno-Karabakh people’s rights and security.” He noted in this regard that the Armenian and Azerbaijani foreign ministers are continuing their latest round of U.S.-mediated negotiations that began outside Washington on Tuesday.
“There is no alternative to peace in our region, and our government, faced with all difficulties and complications, will continue the political path of peace,” Pashinian added at the start of a weekly cabinet meeting in Yerevan.
A U.S. State Department spokesman, Vedant Patel, said late on Wednesday that there is “no change in the schedule” of the Washington talks that are due to be wrapped up on Thursday evening.
“We are deeply disturbed by the loss of life in Nagorno-Karabakh, and we offer our condolences to the families of all of those who were killed,” Patel told reporters. “These latest incidents underscore the need to refrain from hostilities and for a durable and dignified peace.”
Earlier on Wednesday, Foreign Minister Ararat Mirzoyan and his Azerbaijani counterpart Jeyhun Bayramov held a trilateral meeting with Jake Sullivan, the U.S. national security adviser, at the White House. Sullivan said he urged Baku and Yerevan to “continue making progress toward peace, as well as to avoid provocations and de-escalate tensions in order to build confidence.”
According to the Armenian Foreign Ministry, Mirzoyan told Sullivan that Azerbaijani artillery and drone attacks that left the four Karabakh soldiers dead are part of continuing Azerbaijani efforts to “subject Nagorno-Karabakh to ethnic cleansing.” Pashinian likewise accused Baku of pursuing a “consistent policy” of depopulating the Armenian-populated region.
Pashinian drew strong condemnation from the Karabakh leaders and the Armenian opposition after he pledged in May to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh through an Armenian-Azerbaijani peace treaty discussed during the ongoing peace talks. His critics maintain that the Karabakh Armenians cannot live safely under Azerbaijani rule and would inevitably leave their homeland in that case.