Pashinyan made claims to Aliyev: Washington agreements failed

Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev needs to clarify what he means by the "Zangezur corridor," Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said.

"The President of Azerbaijan has repeatedly used the expression "Zangezur corridor", including from this rostrum. Such an expression is not in the documents and has never existed," Pashinyan said, speaking at the UN General Assembly on September 28.

According to him, it makes sense for the Azerbaijani colleague to explain what he means by using this phrase, "since in Armenian realities it is perceived as a territorial claim to Armenia and is associated with talks about the conflict."

"We agreed on a clear statement on August 8. The President of Azerbaijan speaks from different rostrums about the alleged surrender of Armenia. I don't understand why aggressive texts that have nothing to do with objective reality are used against the background of exclusively positive content. Doesn't the world bring enough joy? For example, it brings it to me. The so—called Zangezur Corridor and similar statements do not follow from the agreements reached and are perceived as territorial claims to a sovereign state that contradict the agreements reached," Nikol Pashinyan said.

On August 8, the leaders of Armenia, the United States and Azerbaijan signed a joint declaration in Washington. According to the document, Armenia will grant the United States rights for 99 years to develop Route 741, along which Azerbaijan expects to establish land links with its exclave of Nakhichevan. This is a 42-kilometer stretch of road through the Syunik region of Armenia. The American side plans to sublet the land to a consortium responsible for infrastructure and management. After that, the project, which is called the "Zangezur Corridor" in Azerbaijan and Turkey, was called the "Trump route" in Armenia. In Washington, the Foreign ministers of Armenia and Azerbaijan also initialed the text of the future peace agreement.

The Armenian opposition stated after Pashinyan's speech at the UN that the peace process has reached an impasse, and "the Washington agreements have actually failed."

The representative of the Supreme Body of the ARF, a member of the Armenia bloc, Ishkhan Saghatelyan, pointed out that Pashinyan avoided direct wording on such a high international platform. In particular, he never uttered the word "prisoners", preferring the vague expression "persons trapped in captivity as a result of many years of conflict."

"It seems that the prime minister is actually forbidden to call a spade a spade, to recognize the obvious fact that Azerbaijan continues to hold Armenian prisoners of war. Such rhetoric unwittingly plays into the hands of Baku, smoothing out the severity of the problem," Saghatelyan wrote on the social network.

The oppositionist also pointed to Pashinyan's statement regarding Aliyev's rhetoric about the "Zangezur Corridor". The Armenian Prime Minister stated that in Armenian reality this is perceived as a territorial claim to Armenia and is associated with conflict rhetoric.

According to Saghatelyan, Pashinyan actually confirmed that the Azerbaijani side not only does not intend to comply with the previous agreements, but also continues to defiantly ignore them.

Moreover, the Prime Minister of Armenia actually confirms: His own peace agenda, built on the agreements in Washington, is devoid of practical meaning, Saghatelyan stressed.

As Sputnik Armenia notes, while the Armenian prime Minister was talking about the "established peace", from the same rostrum earlier, Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev again accused Yerevan of "aggression" and "occupation", called the Armenian leaders "war criminals" and stressed that all the key points of the agreements with Armenia were dictated by Baku.

Former Deputy Speaker of the Armenian Parliament, RPA representative Eduard Sharmazanov also pointed out that Pashinyan's speech demonstrated the failure of the peace agenda.

"His words resembled the confession of a deceived teenager begging for help," Sharmazanov wrote.

The oppositionist pointed out a lot of contradictions in the speech of the Armenian prime minister. The prime minister said that "peace has been established." However, immediately after that, he himself admitted: "the world brings with it questions and more questions"

"If Aliyev's rhetoric is associated with conflict, the question arises: what kind of peace are we talking about?" — the politician emphasized.

Sharmazanov is also surprised by the prime minister's statement that the world gives him "enough joy."

"What makes you so happy, Nikol: the surrender and loss of Artsakh, thousands of dead, the detention of Armenian prisoners in Baku or the occupation of Armenian territory?" — Sharmazanov writes.