It`s not a question of 4 villages, it`s not a question of Armenia -  Pashinyan

ArmInfo. "Some clergymen remembered that there is a church there, they hold a 'show' service 

there, how many times did they remember this church and how many times did they hold services there? "I don't understand, is this a stand-up?" Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in parliament on April 11.

Earlier, the head of the Tavush diocese of the Armenian Apostolic 

Church, Archbishop Bagrat Galstanyan, speaking about the mood of the 

local residents, said that they were ready to give in and surrender.  

"They tell me that they are waiting for me in Tavush. Sorry, I have 

been to Voskepar, Kirants several times since I became Prime 

Minister, both officially and unofficially.

Now the <Armenia> faction says that delimitation should be carried 

out according to Soviet maps, then it accuses me of calling some 

territories Azerbaijani. I say that as part of the Armenian SSR, that 

is, on the maps on which, as you say, demarcation should be carried 

out, there have never been villages whose names are voiced by 

Azerbaijan," he said, once again emphasizing the names of these 

villages - Baghanis Ayrum, Ashagy Eskipara Kheyrimli and 

Gyzylgadzhili.

"I agree that It's not a question of 4 villages, it's not a question 

of Armenia. You hit the spot! We are solving the issue of the 

Republic of Armenia and the essence of this issue is as follows: we 

say that we want to have a border there. If you ask what Armenia will 

receive, Armenia will receive a border: the Republic of Armenia was 

established on the territory of the Armenian SSR, and no one can 

challenge this territory. But we must also understand that this is a 

process that cannot be accomplished in one action. Of course, there 

may be risks in this process, but they need to be managed," Nikol 

Pashinyan emphasized.

Earlier, Baku demanded the immediate "return" of 4 villages located 

on the border of Armenia's Tavush region and Azerbaijan's Kazakh 

region. The statement followed a meeting of the border delimitation 

commissions, headed by the deputy prime ministers of the two 

countries, Mher Grigoryan and Shahin Mustafayev. "As for the four 

non-exclave Azerbaijani villages (Baganis Ayrim, Ashagi Eskipara, 

Kheyrimli and Gyzylgajili) occupied by Armenia, their belonging to 

Azerbaijan is indisputable, and they are subject to immediate 

release," the statement said. Baku is also confident that within the 

framework of the delimitation process "the issue of liberation of 

four exclave villages (Yukhary Askipara, Sofulu, Barkhudarlu in the 

Armenian Tavush, as well as Kyarki (Armenian- Tigranashen) in the 

Ararat region, on the border with Nakhichevan will be resolved. At 

the same time, Baku denied the statements of the Armenian authorities 

that Azerbaijan occupied the territory of 31 Armenian settlements in 

five regions with a total area of about 200 square kilometers, 

considering it "an unfounded statement." Some of them came under the 

control of Azerbaijan back in the 1990s during the first Karabakh 

war, the others as a result of Azerbaijani aggression in 2021-2022.