– Armenian President Serzh Sargsyan during his visit to Turkmenistan said that “the right of the people of Nagorno-Karabakh to self-determination is indisputable”. Whom did he mean by “the people of Karabakh”, and what about more than one million Azerbaijani refugees and IDPs?

– Sargsyan uses any interstate area, any occasion to voice thoughts that are far from the real situation.

The Armenian president, first of all, should not forget that the Nagorno-Karabakh was home to a significant number of Azerbaijanis who did not participate in any polls and referendums, and had no desire to be apart from Azerbaijan.

Speaking of the conflict, making some analogies and developing empathy for the alleged “self-determined people,” it is necessary to talk about everything to the end.

You need to talk about more than one million Azerbaijani refugees and internally displaced persons driven from their lands, about the occupied territories of Azerbaijan and the UN Security Council resolutions that demand the release of these lands.

You could remember about Armenia’s ignoring the decisions and resolutions of international organizations.

That is, if to raise the issue of self-determination and referendum, it is necessary to talk about everything in complex.

And other important fact is that Azerbaijan joined the UN as a single territorial structure with Nagorno-Karabakh. It was accepted in this format.

– Sargsyan in Ashgabat also noted that the actual situation in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue “should be regarded de jure”. It seems that the Armenian president “grew bolder” on the background of the Crimean events.

– I believe that the Crimean option to resolve problem is excluded for Nagorno-Karabakh.

Despite the outward similarity of separatist tendencies in the post-Soviet space, each of these areas has its historical roots, background and specific.

Abkhazia and South Ossetia proclaimed almost “state sovereignty” but were recognized only by Russia and some micro-states.

Crimea is a territory which Russia considers its historical territory and never wavered from it, it is home to Russians and Russian-speaking folks. Russia was always looking for a reason to get it, so this opportunity came up.

Nagorno-Karabakh has a completely different specificity and history. In no state or an international organization there is a sensible statesman that would not recognize Nagorno-Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.

Both at the level of international organizations and at the level of heads of states, Nagorno-Karabakh is considered an integral territory of Azerbaijan.

Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity is recognized also by Russia, which, being a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, has repeatedly stated this. Here direct analogies are misplaced.

Even Armenia for certain reasons and circumstances still has not recognized Nagorno-Karabakh as an independent state institution.

Understandably, there is concern that Armenia can become a pariah. Legal factors in this issue are on the side of Azerbaijan.

– Since the Armenian president is talking about self-determination, should he be reminded about Azerbaijanis expelled from Armenia, who also have the right to self-determination?

– Of course, if we talk about the principle of self-determination, it is necessary to recall Zangazur, Goycha and the existence of the Erivan khanate, which were populated by ethnic Azerbaijanis, and where there was not a single Armenian.

You can take encyclopaedic dictionaries of the very Russia and other literature, where you can read about the history of the same Erivan khanate and see what happened in the South Caucasus in the past century, who lived where, what state establishments existed, and what ethnic groups are related to the South Caucasus and what are not.

It is a well known fact that until the recent historical time, a large number of Azerbaijanis lived in the Armenian territory.

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