“As for Armenia or various international bodies, I want to make clear that nobody can strip us of our right to self-determination, an international norm,” Arayik Harutiunian told Karabakh lawmakers.
Harutiunian said that Azerbaijan is heightening tensions along the Karabakh “line of contact” and using its nearly eight-month blockade of the Lachin corridor to force the Karabakh Armenians to disband their government bodies and armed forces and accept Azerbaijani rule.
“The objective is [to ensure] an Artsakh delegation’s visit to Baku,” he said. “They are doing everything for that. Baku is discussing only one topic with us: the topic of integration. It’s not discussing any other topics.”
Azerbaijan’s leaders have openly threatened to launch a new military attack on Karabakh in recent weeks.
“That is why the [Karabakh] parliament must be dissolved, the element who calls himself the president [of Karabakh] must surrender and all ministers, deputies and other officials must resign. Only then can there be talk of amnesty,” Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev said in late May.
Two weeks later, Baku completely blocked relief supplies to Karabakh carried out by Russian peacekeepers. It thus aggravated shortages of food, medicine and other essential items there.
Aliyev’s threats and the tightening of the blockade followed Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian’s pledge to recognize Azerbaijani sovereignty over Karabakh. The authorities in Stepanakert strongly condemned Pashinian, saying that his statement is “null and void” for them.
Pashinian’s government wants Baku and Stepanakert to address “the rights and security” of Karabakh’s ethnic Armenian population through an internationally mediated dialogue. Its critics say the Karabakh Armenians cannot live safely under Azerbaijani rule and would inevitably leave their homeland in that case.