Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan chaired the regular Cabinet meeting today.

Before discussing the agenda of the session, the Prime Minister made a speech in which he referred to the situation in Nagorno-Karabakh resulted by the closure of the Lachin Corridor and the work on the next phase of the draft peace treaty with Azerbaijan.

In his speech, Nikol Pashinyan noted.

"Dear participants of the Cabinet meeting,
Dear people,

Yesterday, on the 66th day of the illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor, Azerbaijan restored the supply of natural gas to Nagorno Karabakh. But two hours later, the gas pipeline was closed again.

Let me remind that the last time Azerbaijan had closed the pipeline supplying natural gas to Nagorno Karabakh was on February 7, and before that it had opened it on January 29. Since January 9, 2023, the electricity supply to Nagorno Karabakh has been blocked.

As a result of the illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor, a humanitarian crisis was caused in Nagorno-Karabakh, while as a result of the energy blockade, the humanitarian crisis has worsened and an environmental crisis is emerging in parallel, because the population of Nagorno-Karabakh has to use timber for heating their apartments and other household needs, for which forests are cut down. This is, in fact, undeniable proof that the environmental motives behind the blockade of the Lachin Corridor are fictitious, and Azerbaijan's actions have a purpose to complete the policy of ethnic cleansing of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh.

If until now the international community was skeptical about this claim of ours, now, with time this is becoming more and more obvious. It is no coincidence that the Lemkin International Institute for Genocide Prevention issued a statement three times in the last three months regarding the illegal blockade of the Lachin Corridor and the rhetoric of the Azerbaijani leadership. In the latest statement, published on January 18, 2023, the Lemkin Institute asks world leaders to take seriously the threat of genocide of Armenian people in Nagorno-Karabakh.

This alert throughout the world must grow louder every day, and efforts in this direction must be continuous.

Dear participants of the Cabinet meeting,
Dear people,

Yesterday, the Republic of Armenia completed the work on the next phase of the draft treaty on peace and establishing relations with Azerbaijan, and our proposals have been forwarded to the Azerbaijani side. In other words, saying proposals we mean a complete draft document containing our proposals. We also forwarded the document to the OSCE Minsk Group Co-chair countries.

We work on the draft according to the following logic: to develop a document that we are ready to sign at any time. It is clear, of course, that this document should be acceptable to Azerbaijan as well, and we hope that it will be possible to develop the certain progress observed as a result of three rounds of negotiations. Our vision is as follows. the document must contain the kind of logic of agreements, the kind of a system of checks and balances that would rule out any scenario of disrupting lasting and sustainable peace. The point of this is that the signing of the document does not turn into a war already on the basis of the peace treaty. This sounds absurd, but it can also be such a scenario, but we want the contrary, a really lasting peace.

Dear Colleagues,

Once again, I express the commitment of our government and myself to sign such a peace treaty, which will become a guarantee of lasting and stable peace as soon as possible. As I have said many times before, I am ready to take on and bear that responsibility. Thank you."