Levon Zurabyan writes on his Facebook page.
"Shushi and Lachin were left to us... Nikol Pashinyan's propagandists are already trying to defend the ugly lies of the supreme liar from the podium of the National Assembly, saying that the recently revealed documents of the US State Department allegedly show that according to the 1997 Phased Settlement, "Armenian forces must withdraw Bervoi from Shushi and Lachin.
They are so illiterate in diplomacy and so indecent in the dishonorable task of clearing Nikol from the responsibility of his destructive decisions that they cite Heydar Aliyev's wording to express agreement to the 1997 Phased version as evidence of such an obvious lie, which is posted in American reports.
It will not even occur to them (and if it does, it means that they are maliciously misleading our public) that the important thing is not the formulation of the settlement plan by Aliyev, in which he also outlined his wishes for the future, but the one presented by the co-chairs of the Minsk Group. and the actual text of the settlement plan agreed upon by Armenia and Azerbaijan. And in the text of the 1997 Phased settlement, only the following is said about the withdrawal of troops (item II.B):
1. "In the second stage, the forces are withdrawn simultaneously and according to the schedule included in Appendix No. 1, as follows:
(1) Armenian forces deployed outside the borders of Armenia shall be brought within those borders.
(2) Nagorno-Karabakh forces are brought to Nagorno-Karabakh in 1988. within the border, except for Lachine region.
(3) Azerbaijani forces are withdrawn beyond the borders specified in Annex No. 1, based on the instructions of the CSTO, and from the territory of Armenia.
but also in the entire Lachine region.
2. As for the non-agreed issues (the status of Nagorno-Karabakh, the return of Armenians to Shahumyan, the return of Azerbaijanis to Shush and Lachin), they were postponed for an uncertain future and had to be resolved by further negotiations between Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno-Karabakh in a situation that had already been established. are the multinational forces dividing the OSCE and the military conflict has been stopped.
This is how it was formulated in the settlement plan (item XI).
"The three parties to this agreement, thus putting an end to the war side of the conflict, agree, with the assistance of the co-chairs of the Minsk Conference, to continue negotiations in good faith with other parties invited by the OSCE Chairman-in-Office in order to achieve an urgent and comprehensive settlement of all other sides of the conflict, including the political side, which includes e. Determination of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh and solving the problems related to Lachin, Shushi and Shahumyan. such a settlement, after it is implemented through negotiations and signed by the above-mentioned parties, is subject to recognition by the international community during the Minsk conference to be convened as soon as possible."
As we can see, Azerbaijan's wishes regarding the withdrawal of Armenian military units from Shushi and Lachin and the return of Azerbaijanis to those regions are not even formulated in the settlement plan, and all that is only talked about as "problems related to Shushi and Lachin".
Nikol's propagandists, I don't know why, are silent that the issue of Shahumyan region was also included in that general set of unresolved issues.
And those who understand a bit of diplomacy would also understand that in that wording not only the de facto independence of Nagorno Karabakh was encoded, but also the exchange of Shahumyan with Shushi and Lachin. I do not accept an apology from liars, because telling lies has become their only profession today."
