Maria Karapetyan’s Speech at Annual Session of the OSCE PA

The 30^th Annual Session of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe Parliamentary Assembly (OSCE PA) took place in Vancouver, Canada. At the Plenary Meeting of the Session the Member of the delegation of the National Assembly to the OSCE PA Maria Karapetyan gave a speech.

"Dear colleagues,

I invite you to reread paragraph 26 of the Vancouver Declaration and to protect this paragraph as adopted by the First committee.

This paragraph welcomes the mediation of the United States and the European Union in the negotiations between Armenia and Azerbaijan. This is extremely important to keep. It is equally important to keep the call to restore the free movement of people and goods along the Lachin corridor. Finally, the paragraph calls for the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from the territory of the Republic of Armenia.

When Azerbaijan attacked the sovereign territory of the Republic of Armenia last September, we invited a monitoring mission of the European Union to observe and report on the situation at the border. The EU monitors are in Armenia for already several months. Azerbaijan has refused to have such a mission on their side.

The EU Parliament has adopted two resolutions calling for the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from our territory - on January 18 and on March 15. The European External Action Service and the US Department of State have also repeatedly called for the withdrawal of Azerbaijani troops from the territory of the Republic of Armenia.

From our side, Armenia recognizes the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan including Nagorno-Karabakh with the understanding that the rights and security of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh need to be discussed in a dialogue between Baku and the representatives of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh with international presence for such a dialogue.

I understand Azerbaijan does not like to hear this because they want to continue the conflict. Azerbaijan has announced it is preparing a new military operation in Nagorno-Karabakh called "Revenge 3". Revenge 3 because the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh have already been attacked by operations Revenge 1 and Revenge 2 as part of the "integration policies" of Azerbaijan. This needs to be stopped," the MP noted.