Recognizing NKR’s Independence or Not, Either Way Crisis Deepens: Nikol Pashinyan

The bill to recognize the Republic of Nagorno-Karabakh’s independence, which the Heritage Party has raised for discussion at the National Assembly, is actually evidence of a serious crisis in Armenia’s domestic and foreign political arena, writes imprisoned Armenian Times chief editor Nikol Pashinyan in a post on his website today.

“The most prominent example of this is the arguments of those in support of the bill are justified, also justified are the arguments of those against the bill, and there really is no solution. Let’s assume, the RA National Assembly today recognized Karabakh’s independence, what will we do tomorrow to achieve international recognition of Karabakh’s independence? We have no effective steps, because without at least one of the OSCE MG [Minsk Group] Co-Chairs strong backing, we cannot achieve Karabakh’s recognition by any country. We cannot obtain such recognition even from Kosovo, Abkhazia, South Ossetia. This means that the recognition of NKR’s independence by the RA NA [National Assembly] will be similar to if, let’s say, Armenia declares itself to be the owner of British Petroleum…

“…[if] in the current state, we recognize Karabakh’s independence, the foreign and domestic political crisis will further deepen; [if] we don’t recognize NKR’s independence, without that the foreign and domestic crisis deepens…” Pashinyan writes.