MFA: Nikol Pashinyan is legally ignorant or cunning

"The attempt of Armenian Prime Minister to justidy the forceful secession of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast (NKAO) from the Azerbaijan SSR through the process of Azerbaijan's exit from the USSR testifies to his legal ignorance or conscious cunning. Probably, the Armenian Prime Minister wants to constantly hoax his people, but he won't be able to mislead the world community, especially when it comes to the legal side of the issue," spokesperson of the Azerbaijani Foreign Ministry Leyla Abdullayeva said.

“Firstly, the status of Nagorno-Karabakh as an autonomous region within the Azerbaijan SSR was fixed in the USSR Constitutions of 1936 and 1977, and the territory of the Union Republic could not be changed without its consent. The Supreme Soviet of the USSR in its decisions unequivocally recognized the impossibility of changing the existing borders with respect to the illegal actions of Armenian nationalists aimed at seceding NKAO from the Azerbaijan SSR. Thus, the attempts to tear Nagorno-Karabakh from the Azerbaijan SSR were accompanied by an obvious violation of the Constitution of the USSR, and do not generate any legal consequences.

"Secondly, the USSR Law “On the Procedure for Solving Issues Related to the Exit of a Union Republic from the USSR” of April 3, 1990, which the Armenian side often refers to, aimed at regulating relations within the USSR by establishing a certain procedure that the union republics were to follow in the event of secession from the Union. The exit of a Union republic from the USSR could be considered completed only after passing through a complex multi-stage procedure and, ultimately, the adoption of an appropriate decision by the Congress of People's Deputies of the USSR. However, the mentioned Law was never applied, and not a single union republic, including Azerbaijan and Armenia, took advantage of the exit procedure provided for in it.

"Thirdly, after the USSR collapse, Azerbaijan joined the UN, as well as other international organizations, within its administrative borders of the times of the USSR, which, accordingly, were recognized by the world community as the international borders of the Republic of Azerbaijan. Unlike what Armenia claims, the states that signed the Almaty Declaration of December 21, 1991, on the goals and principles of the Commonwealth of Independent States, including Armenia, committed themselves to recognize and respect the territorial integrity of each other and the inviolability of existing borders.

"The pretense of the Armenian prime minister, who promised the mountains of gold to his voters, is collapsing more and more because of the lack of concrete ways out of the current situation, which cannot be improved without normalizing relations with neighbor Azerbaijan. Here, factors such as economics, demography, the military component and others should be taken into account.

"At the same time, we would like to note that regardless of the position of one or another Armenian leader, Azerbaijan will restore sovereignty over its internationally recognized and original territories, including the Nagorno-Karabakh region, since justice and law are on Azerbaijan's side. This time will come, and taking into account the development of the situation in the region, it can come any minute," Abdullayeva added.