Armenia believes Russia’s peacekeeping contingent should remain in Nagorno-Karabakh until the conflict is completely resolved, Secretary of the Security Council Armen Grigoryan told reporters on Thursday, February 10.
"We think that until the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is resolved, the peacekeepers should be there in order to find a long-term solution. Until there is a solution, the presence of the peacekeepers is necessary," he said, according to Sputnik Armenia.
Weighing in on the resolution of the conflict, the Secretary of the Security Council noted that the conflict should be resolved within the OSCE Minsk Group. Any process that could interfere with a peaceful settlement worries the Armenian side, Grigoryan noted, adding that, in his opinion, the co-chairs have all the levers to prevent any use of force.
The Russian peacekeeping contingent consisting of some 2000 troops was deployed in Karabakh immediately after Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, Russian and Azerbaijani Presidents Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev on November 9, 2020 signed a statement to end the war in Karabakh after almost 45 days. Under the deal, the Armenian side returned all the seven regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, having lost a part of Karabakh itself in hostilities.
