On 21 November, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan paid an official visit to Italy. While in Italy, he met with the Armenian diaspora at the Armenian Apostolic Church in Milan and spoke on the issue of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict at the Italian Institute for International Political Studies in Milan.

At the meeting with the Armenian community in Italy, Pashinyan spoke about Armenian identity. “There is constantly a force that is misleading us and saying that Armenian monuments are being eradicated, if excavations are held in Armenia. Whenever there is a desire to make reforms in the educational system, they say the Armenians’ national identity is being destroyed. Whenever there is a desire to transform universities, they say the government wants to eliminate science in the country. This is not right, people,” he said.

“We Armenians have always been in fear of losing something. Even today, we are afraid of losing our identity, our culture and our land, and as a result, we are [truly] losing all that, and our history has showed that many times. We have to go from being a nation [where] everything is constantly taken [away] to being a nation [where] things are constantly given, and for that we must not be afraid of putting in efforts [to do so],” he added.

Pashinyan was confronted by an Italo-Armenian scholar during his address to the Armenian community in Milan. “There is hate propaganda, state institutions are being destructed, and there is no strategy on Nagorno-Karabakh. I believe this policy poses a serious threat to the statehood of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh. The biggest thing you can do for Armenia is to resign,” she told him.

Pashinyan responded that “people are constantly talking about hate propaganda. If the only thing that the Armenian people had towards the former authorities was hate, why am I to blame for that? Whom have we urged to hate? On the contrary, our revolution was a revolution of love and solidarity.” Speaking on Nagorno-Karabakh strategy, Pashinyan spoke about the former government’s bad strategies. In response to the comment on the destruction of state institutions, Pashinyan said the following: “If by state institution you are referring to corruption, then yes, the institution is destructed. If by saying hatred you are referring to the claim that every stolen penny must be returned, then yes, every stolen penny will be returned. Today, the most well-known corrupt officials are hiding in Italy, but none of them should have any hopes that they are going to get away with what they did. I don’t need to think about my resignation so long as I have the trust of the people of the Republic of Armenia, and when I lose the people’s trust, I won’t even let anyone give me a hint to resign. A Prime Minister who lacks the people’s trust is an evil for a country, regardless of who the person is. There will not be such a government during our administration.”

At the Italian Institute for International Political Studies, Pashinyan said that the biggest security challenge for Armenians is the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. This conflict is not a territorial dispute, as some have tried to present it in a simplified way. It is about the right to self-determination, human rights, and the physical security of the people that live there,” he said.

“Indeed, for a long time, Nagorno-Karabakh participated as a party on the negotiation process. In early 1990s [there were] even a number of meetings… held between the leaders of Nagorno-Karabakh and Azerbaijan, as well as the ministers of defense [for] Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh and the Republic of Armenia. [The] Azerbaijani authorities refuse to negotiate with the representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh. They claim that Nagorno-Karabakh should be considered an indivisible part of Azerbaijan. But this is really a very odd position. On the one hand, Azerbaijani authorities want Nagorno-Karabakh to be a part of their territorial integrity. On the other hand, they do not want to conduct a dialogue with the representatives of Nagorno-Karabakh. What does this position mean? It means that Azerbaijani authorities in fact do not want to negotiate with the people of Nagorno-Karabakh,… because they only want the territories… not the people,“ he said.

The Azerbaijani Ministry of Foreign Affairs responded to Pashinyans’s statements made in Milan. “What the Prime Minister of Armenia said can be characterized… as an attempt to mislead his own population. Another [option] is not possible“ said the Azerbaijani MFA spokesperson Leyla Abdullayeva. The Prime Minister is silent [on the fact] that the so-called ‘referendum on independence’, held by separatists in Nagorno-Karabakh on December 10, 1991, was organized without the consent of Azerbaijan, despite the fact that this autonomous region was legally part of it and the Azerbaijani population of the region did not participate.... It is interesting that, unlike his predecessors, N. Pashinyan positions himself before the international community as an adherent of democratic values. Well, now he needs to confirm this and de-occupy the territory of Azerbaijan so that civilians [can] return to their places of the original residence,” she added.

The Russian OSCE mediator in the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations Igor Popov also spoke of the potential involvement of the Nagorno-Karabakh representatives in the conflict settlement. “I am acting from such a provision that the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict cannot be settled without the consent of all interested parties. The opinion of the [region’s entire] population… should be taken into consideration. We have repeatedly stated that the parties should resolve [the issue of agreement and identification of the membership of the format of the negotiations] between themselves. At the initial phase of the consultations and negotiations, during the cessation of hostilities, after signing of the ceasefire agreement… Nagorno-Karabakh was a participant [in the] relevant agreement and negotiations. Later on, it was decided that Yerevan will represent the interests of Karabakh. If in the course of time the parties agree to the involvement of Nagorno-Karabakh representatives in the process of negotiations, we will support this decision,“ he said.