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At April 23 sitting, the NA Standing Committee on Foreign Relations debated the NA draft statement on Delimitation and Demarcation between the Republic of Armenia and the Republic of Azerbaijan authored by the NA Armenia Faction, which presented the deputy of the Armenia Faction Artur Khachatryan.

The key rapporteur touched upon the delimitation process going on between Armenia and Azerbaijan and its background. “Yes, negotiations should be, yes, delimitation should be. Which should be the basis of delimitation, but not the final paper. According to us, the basis of delimitation should be the factual current borders of 1993,” the rapporteur said.

Afterwards the deputy referred to the agreement reached by the commissions on Delimitation of Armenia and Azerbaijan on April 19. “Yes, the Prime Minister is given right to form advisory bodies by the law on Structure and Activity of Government. The body that leads Mher Grigoryan, nobody has given right to make a decision, where the border passes. Any change of border should be approved through referendum, and any change of territory should be approved through referendum. The territory is the place, the land, on which the sovereignty of Armenia functions, and on which Armenia has a title. Therefore, any change should be approved through referendum, but not by the decision of a commission being an advisory body,” Artur Khachatryan said.

He noted that the faction proposed to adopt the NA statement, where it is clearly noted on what basis the delimitation should take place.

“The delimitation should take place on the basis of the UN Charter, the Vienna Convention, the Helsinki Final Act, having as a guideline the document on delimitation and demarcation developed by the OSCE Secretariat. It is necessary to establish peace, in order to have real delimitation. The borderline should be adjusted around the entire perimeter and then pass to demarcation. As I mentioned, basis for delimitation should be the border by September 24, 1993, and also unblocking of roads, complete, simultaneous unblocking towards communication ways by maintaining sovereignty,” Artur Khachatryan said.

In her co-speech the Committee member Maria Karapetyan noted that the draft under debate was considered a few days ago, on April 9, according to Article 123 of the law Rules of Procedure of the National Assembly in closed format, and it could be voted without debate. The co-rapporteur mentioned that today an opportunity was given to debate the text of the statement publicly. The opposition admits by the draft statement that the legal-political basis of delimitation should be or can be the membership to the CIS. This is good. However, the in the paragraph regarding the very delimitation there is the following sentence: “Taking into consideration of membership to the CIS being as a legal-political primary basis for delimitation and demarcation between the two countries, we should observe as a starting point for delimitation of the two countries the factually functioning (the existing borders), (the approved line of contact) at the moment of the official membership to the CIS September 24, 1993. So, because of this sentence I propose that the Committee gives negative conclusion to the proposal of taking the draft statement again to the NA plenary sitting,” Maria Karapetyan clarified, stating that the Republic of Armenia has a state border. “This sentence offers to refuse that border and to accept as a starting point the line of contact of 1993, or the so called, the factual functioning border, which is an Azerbaijan uses. This is absolutely unacceptable, and contains legal, political, diplomatic and military risks for Armenia,” he said.

According to the deputy, if Armenia begins defending the line of contact of 1993, whether this means that Armenia should refuse the territories of Armenia, which are under occupation of Azerbaijan from 1993 until now.

During the debate the deputies of the opposition and ruling factions expressed conflicting viewpoints.

The Committee Chair Sargis Khandanyan particularly expressed an opinion that the draft statement does not promote at all the peace agenda declared by the Government of Armenia, it is an antipode to the state interests of the Republic of Armenia.

The Committee did not endorse the NA draft statement.