Within the framework of the second international “Yerevan Dialogue” forum, Ararat Mirzoyan participated in a panel discussion titled “Mitigating Security Challenges Through Inclusive Cooperation in the Middle East, South Caucasus, and Central Asia.”

The panel discussion also featured Minister for Europe and Foreign Affairs of France Jean-Noël Barrot, Minister of State for Foreign Affairs and Expatriates of Palestine Varsen Aghabekian, Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe Tatiana Molcean, Project Director of the International Crisis Group of Türkiye Nigar Göksel.

Question: Minister Mirzoyan, as you mentioned in your speech this morning, the title of this year's Yerevan Dialogue, “Navigating the Unknown”, couldn't be more fitting. As the previous panel discussed, the U.S., one of the most important actors on the world scene, has become completely unpredictable in its foreign policy, and the EU is scrambling to rise to the immediate need and the use of the window of opportunity to fill the vision of European sovereignty with life. From your point of view, what are the most important challenges that Armenia and the region are currently facing? 

Ararat Mirzoyan. Thank you very much for this interesting question. You know, dear colleagues, dear guests, sometimes we – public figures, politicians, journalists, – during our public appearances, are supposed to, and I think this is a big secret, but everybody knows this secret, we are supposed to have the very serious expression of the face and express some clever and complicated ideas. In this case, to answer this question, I'm going to come up with very simple answers because, you know, usually the truth is very simple. And the simple answer in this case, I believe, is that there's a huge demand for peace in the world. Everybody's fed up, everybody's tired of, and everybody's exhausted with the wars, the suffering in Ukraine,  in Gaza, the war that we had, the conflict that we have seen here in South Caucasus and elsewhere. 

So, what makes us a little bit unique, and I'm very sorry for this word, is that in our case, in case of Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict, we have already made tangible steps towards establishment of peace, and it's the bilateral agreement upon the text of the draft Peace Agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan.

I very much hope that everybody would agree that this is a huge accomplishment, and we are ready to sign this agreement and then eventually, of course, ratify, which will open an era of peace and cooperation in South Caucasus. And coming also to the title of this panel discussion, this model probably, hopefully, could also be exported to – of course, every conflict is unique, there are nuances, but the approach, the general aim to establish peace and an open era of cooperation and peace could be exported – to Ukraine, to Middle East, to some other regions which might be needing intervention. And I want to remind all of us here, our colleagues, politicians, governments, members of parliaments in the world, our final aim and our obligation is to create an environment where our citizens could build their happiness, their livelihood, have a better education, better healthcare system, and of course, the other things too.

So we must act as we are obliged, we must create this environment. First of all, peace and security. I can, of course, elaborate a little bit on the benefits that peace could bring.

For instance, we have been speaking about the «Crossroads of Peace», establishment of transport corridors here in South Caucasus, unblocking of transport infrastructure here in South Caucasus, mainly between Armenia and Azerbaijan, and we all, if we just have one look at the world map, we can see that unblocking these communications here in this region could connect Europe with Central Asia. But, I mean, these are evident things that I don't think there is much necessity to speak about from this panel. 

Question. Is the possible Peace Agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan also an opportunity for normalization of ties between Armenia and  Türkiye?

Ararat Mirzoyan. To put a long story, yes. But I also want to express my attitude to this position of the official Ankara. We have launched our dialogue with Türkiye, having in mind and publicly saying, both we and our Turkish colleagues, that this process should take place without any precondition. Now, I want to say that we are happy to see that the Turkish-Armenian dialogue is not that problematic as one could assume.

And now we reached a point where the only thing that stands between now and tomorrow where the diplomatic relations could be established between our two countries and the borders could finally open and the connection issue could be resolved is the non-completely finalized state of Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiations and dialogue. Although my personal attitude and my assessment is that if we succeed to have a breakthrough with Türkiye, then this breakthrough would definitely have a huge positive impact on Armenian-Azerbaijani normalization. 

Question. Our panel's title speaks of inclusive cooperation. What would this look like for you, for the region at large? 

Ararat Mirzoyan. Well, answering this question, I should probably continue from where Minister Barrot left off. By the way, we pretty much share the vision of the French Minister, the vision for the solution of the Middle East problems. Probably the only tangible difference is that Armenia has recognized the State of Palestine, and we have the honor to have the Minister participating in the panel. 

By the way, again, taking the opportunity, I have sent an invitation to our Israeli colleague as well, and I believe, this conversation would benefit if our distinguished colleague from Israel also had decided to participate. Nevertheless, joint engagement and mutual agreement is probably key.

You know, again, this is a very simple truth. You cannot establish truth alone. You need at least the other side also wishing and being interested in this peace. That's why we are very much following and very much committed to our dialogue with our Azerbaijani colleagues. We cannot establish peace in the South Caucasus without having our Azerbaijani colleagues at the table. That's why we not only continue our delimitation process։ 

And here, Minister, you are completely right. The cooperation and peace should be based on mutual, firm acknowledgement of territorial integrity. If you violate the borders, then the whole concept collapses. That's why we can discuss not only the Peace Treaty, which is, again, a simple, more or less simple document, (no single peace treaty can regulate all the spheres of life or relations between any two countries), that's why we also discuss the future possible cooperation and transit routes crossing Azerbaijan and also Armenia. So, cooperation and engagement is indeed key.

Ararat Mirzoyan. I'm sorry to intervene, it's not my turn to speak, but I mostly, of course, agree with Madame Molchan, but if I'm not mistaken, and please correct me if I am mistaken, but if I'm not mistaken, I heard Madame Molchan saying that there is always a window of opportunity. Unfortunately, that's not the case. That's not the case.

We have been working hard to speak about normalization of relations with Azerbaijan, with Türkiye, deepening our relations with the EU, and I'm bringing our own examples, but I am sure that everyone has his or her own example in this sense, and if we do not deliver very tangible results, then this momentum would be lost. And I think that not only one year, not even two or five years will be needed, but probably a change of generation would be needed, at least in our case, in this region, to rebuild or again to re-establish this dialogue, this cooperation, the potential of which we do have with Azerbaijan, with Türkiye, and we are really very, very close. So this is probably the only aspect, the only idea where I think it is necessary to express disagreement.

Question. We're currently witnessing a struggle between pro-European forces in the region and Euro-skeptic or Euro-hostile forces. What does the region need in order to strengthen its ties with Europe and its outlook towards Europe? 

Ararat Mirzoyan. Well, you're putting me in a very difficult position because now I have to speak also about, and in place, if I may, I express my ideas about Azerbaijan's perceptions, about Georgia's perceptions. For sure, I can speak definitely for Armenia. So we just adopted a law saying that, I mean, the government of Armenia should adopt a policy of European integration and a policy of becoming a member state of the European Union.

So we are in the middle of a process of significantly deepening our ties and integration with the European Union. But also, as you said, there are also Euro-skeptics here as well. And I was referring to this situation during my previous intervention, saying that there is huge expectation in Armenia, within Armenian society.

So we have democracy here. We are diversifying our ties with our international partners. We are launching several programs and mechanisms. We do have a CEPA agreement. We have a New partnership agenda with the European Union. But also, there is a huge expectation. And again, this is a bilateral process. We can have expectations, but maybe that's not the case and that's not the readiness from the European side. So we should understand where our visions coincide. And if they do coincide, how to act, how to plan our joint tomorrow.

For now, there are, once again, there are huge expectations within Armenian society. And if these expectations are not fulfilled by our government, by our EU colleagues, then we will have a huge frustration.

And this is a region where feelings are very important, historically and traditionally. And if these expectations lead to not fulfillment, but to frustration, then again, the momentum would be lost. And I can hardly imagine when we can restart the process.