Kocharyan and Sargsyan were predicted to return to Azerbaijan

Assistant to the President of Azerbaijan Hikmet Hajiyev said that during the trial of the former leaders of the self-proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic (NKR), important facts “about Armenia’s responsibility” for the activities of the unrecognized state are revealed. At the same time, he made it clear that his statement was a response to the reaction of the Armenian authorities regarding the hearings taking place in Baku.

According to Hajiyev, instead of conducting unnecessary propaganda against the judicial process, the Armenian government should cooperate with his country. In particular, Yerevan can help Baku restore transitional justice and establish lasting peace in the region.

“The sincere desire for peace and the beginning of new relations with Azerbaijan, among other things, would be demonstrated by Armenia’s willingness to admit its responsibility and extradite those accused of war crimes, especially those who are currently hiding in the country. However, if Yerevan believes that these crimes will be forgotten over time, it is greatly mistaken,” said the assistant to the President of Azerbaijan.

Representatives of the opposition were the first in Armenia to respond to Hajiyev’s proposal. Thus, the press secretary of the Republican Party, Eduard Sharmazanov, said that back in March 2021, he predicted Baku’s demand to extradite the Karabakh leaders to him. At the same time, Sharmazanov did not rule out that Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan may act in concert with Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev on this issue.

“Hajiyev openly demands that Armenia extradite the leaders of the Artsakh liberation war. First of all, we are talking about Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sargsyan (the second and third presidents of Armenia. – “NG”). Do you rule out that Nikol will fulfill the demand of Azerbaijan? To exclude this, it is necessary to suspend Nikola,” the representative of the Republican Party announced.

In turn, Tigran Abrahamyan, secretary of the parliamentary faction “I have the Honor”, considered Hajiyev’s statement to be the formation of another requirement for Baku to conclude a peace treaty. “In order to ‘assess’ the sincerity of the Armenian authorities, Azerbaijan demands to take responsibility for the role of the ‘aggressor’ and ‘occupier’ in the commission of ‘war crimes’, as well as to hand over to Baku figures who are presented as criminals by the Azerbaijani authorities,” Abrahamyan said.

Elkhan Shahinoglu, head of the Atlas Center for Political Studies, told NG that Armenian politicians are worried for a reason. “Firstly, the separatists claim in court that they received orders from Yerevan, although for many years they tried to present the NKR as an independent entity. In court, it became clear again that this was a lie. For example, the last separatist leader, Arayik Harutyunyan, stated in court that he advocated negotiations with Baku on the surrender at the beginning of the second Karabakh war. He discussed this issue with Pashinyan. But the Armenian Prime Minister replied that the fighting with the Azerbaijani army should continue,” the expert said.

Shahinoglu also stressed that Kocharyan and Sargsyan played a special role in inciting the Armenians to revolt in Karabakh in the last years of the existence of the USSR. According to him, they first organized rallies in Stepanakert, and then began arming the local population.

“After that, armed attacks began on Azerbaijani settlements in Karabakh, and the number of victims increased,” Shahinoglu said. As for the peace treaty, according to the expert, Azerbaijan is striving to sign it, but this does not mean that the people of the country will forget about the crimes committed.

Meanwhile, the head of the Analytical Center for Strategic Studies and Initiatives (ACSII) Hayk Khalatyan did not rule out that the extradition of Kocharyan and Sargsyan to Azerbaijan could become one of the conditions for signing a peace treaty. “It is difficult to imagine that Baku will make this requirement a precondition for signing a peace treaty. Moreover, one of the requirements of the Azerbaijani authorities for signing a peace treaty is the mutual withdrawal of claims,” the expert concluded.