Azerbaijan's territorial integrity of 86,600 square kilometers that Armenia is ready to recognize includes also Nagorno-Karabakh, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said at a press conference today.
"These 86,600 square kilometers also include Nagorno-Karabakh. But we also say that the issue of rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians should be discussed in the Azerbaijan-Nagorno-Karabakh format," he said.
Asked directly whether the Armenian government recognizes Artsakh (the Armenian name of the region) as part of Azerbaijan, Pashinyan replied that no matter what today's authorities in Yerevan say, "all previous Armenian governments have recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan."
"If we understand each other correctly on this issue, Armenia is ready to recognize the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan of h 86,600 square kilometers, and in our understanding Azerbaijan is also ready to recognize the territorial integrity of Armenia of 29,800 square kilometers. And as for rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians they are to be discussed in the format of Stepanakert-Baku dialogue," he said.
He stressed the importance of creating international guarantees for these talks. "We mean that the issue of rights and security of Nagorno-Karabakh can be simply abandoned and Azerbaijan will continue its policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide of Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh by force. We think it is important that there are international guarantees that this policy will not continue," he said.
Pashinyan said also that the demarcation and delimitation of the Armenian-Azerbaijani border should be carried out based on the 1975 Soviet maps.
"Our position on this issue continues to be the same; we reaffirm it: the mirror withdrawal of troops along the borders marked on the basis of the 1975 Soviet Union General Staff maps, which in our opinion will mean ensuring stability in this situation," he said.
At the same time, he said that he could not register any progress in Azerbaijan's position at the moment, and stressed that ensuring border security was an essential part of the negotiation process, ARKA reports.
