Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated at a forum held in Tbilisi that lines connecting relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey will be built in the near future. According to Pashinyan, pipelines and power lines will be laid through the territory of Armenia from the main part of Azerbaijan to Nakhchivan, as well as along the Azerbaijan-Armenia-Turkey route.
In a statement to Modern.az regarding the issue, Milli Majlis deputy and Chairman of the Board of the Western Azerbaijan Community, Aziz Alakbarli, stated that, unlike many, he does not intend to applaud Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan simply because he has recently taken or attempted to take some constructive steps:
“Pashinyan is the same Pashinyan under whose rule, in the early years of his government, Azerbaijani territory was repeatedly subjected to shelling by Armenia. He danced yalli in Shusha, challenging Azerbaijan, and finally, by his order, on July 12, 2020, the Armenian army violated Azerbaijan's state border in the direction of Tovuz, which led to bloody battles. They simply lacked the strength and were pushed back. On September 27, 2020, they attacked Azerbaijan again, and the 44-day Patriotic War began. To liberate our occupied territories from the enemy, we lost no more, no less, than exactly 3,000 martyrs. What happened now, has Pashinyan changed and become an angel?! No, Pashinyan is still the same Pashinyan. The difference is that Pashinyan and his supporters now realize that Azerbaijan is a strong state with a strong President. Armenia has no other choice but to reckon with Azerbaijan and its President. The path of enmity could jeopardize the existence of the Armenian state. Therefore, by raising a model of the map of Armenia, which has an area of 29.8 thousand square kilometers, above his head, he calls on his people to save the lands they possess, and now he is trying to take real steps in this direction. Naturally, lines connecting relations with Azerbaijan and Turkey will be built soon. This is also to Armenia's benefit”.
A. Alakbarli emphasized that, as the Western Azerbaijan Community, they welcome the initiatives and steps taken by the leaders of Azerbaijan and Armenia towards the settlement of the conflict:
“We also hope that reconciliation between the countries will help normalize relations between the Armenian and Azerbaijani peoples. Undoubtedly, this is a painful process; there are hundreds of thousands of refugees and internally displaced persons who have been uprooted from their native homes and endured countless hardships for decades, over 20,000 martyrs, and tens of thousands of disabled individuals; these are not things to be forgotten in three or five days. Moreover, there are nearly 500,000 Western Azerbaijani refugees and their children who were brutally expelled from their ancestral homes during the last deportation. I am not even mentioning the genocide of 1918-1920, the victims of the 1948-1953 deportations, and their descendants. There are not even as many Armenians in Armenia as their number. Furthermore, Armenians not only expelled people from that geography but also acted fascistically against their cultural heritage, including their cemeteries, mosques, and all traces, erasing them from the face of the earth. It is interesting, what will they answer to all of this?
A question arises: what should Armenia and Armenians do? The answer is concrete: they must unconditionally accept all of Azerbaijan's conditions, apologize to the Azerbaijani state and people, pay compensation for the damage inflicted on people and their property, and ensure the peaceful return of refugees to their native villages and homes in Western Azerbaijan at a high level. The sustainability of peace between our states and peoples depends on the coexistence of our people, and our coexistence depends on the return of our refugees to their native lands”.
