An Exclusive Interview With Armenia’s Foreign Minister

CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR: Can I just ask you what message Mike Pompeo, the secretary of state, gave to you? Is there any hope that there will be a cease-fire?

ZOHRAB MNATSAKANYAN, ARMENIAN MINISTER OF FOREIGN AFFAIRS: Well, thank you very much for having me. The message from Secretary Pompeo is the message of the three co-chair countries, Russia, France and the United States, who have been the internationally recognized mediating foment to find a peaceful resolution to this conflict. And the message is, one, the war has to stop, the aggression has to stop. Cease-fire has to be established and then we move on. That was the message we share very much and we support very much.

AMANPOUR: OK. So, you say that. Your counterpart, who of course we did invite on this program wasn’t able to join us, foreign minister of Azerbaijan, Jeyhun Bayramov, said the only pathway to peace is based on the U.N. Security Council resolutions and respect for international law. The illegal Armenian occupation must end and Azerbaijan’s territorial integrity restored. Are you prepared to make that concession?

MNATSAKANYAN: We are not talking about concessions. We are talking about establishing cease-fire now and returning to the peace process. Now, when it comes to the future of Nagorno-Karabakh, this whole conflict is about people, is about our compatriots in Nagorno-Karabakh. The Armenians who have been resisting the subjugation to the domination to this — to the domination of Azerbaijan. This has been the whole story. It is all about our people who are pounded with bones and rockets and missiles. Now, the existential physical security of our compatriots has been the core of this problem. Has been the core of the issue. And what we have been insisting upon is that we find the peaceful resolution to this conflict in which the security of our compatriots finds its expression and that the statutes of Nagorno-Karabakh, the right to self-determination of our compatriots is a very basic principle recognized by the international community and that has to be delivered now. Our people in Nagorno-Karabakh will live in freedom and dignity in safety and in security. That’s the core issue of this conflict. It’s about people. It’s not the conflict. It’s the real lives of people. As we were talking, when we were here in Washington, when we were trying to further reinforce the message of cease-fire, the message of going back to the peaceful resolution, I have been receiving now messages when coming out of the meetings, messages from Armenia, from Nagorno-Karabakh that the civilian settlements, the towns of Stepanakert, Hadrut, Martuni have again been the target of heavy shelling, of missile shelling by the Azerbaijani forces.