Not Nations’ but Peoples’ Right to Self-Determination: Kocharyan Responds to Aliyev

“Azerbaijani President [Ilham Aliyev] should have known it far long ago that according to the international law it is not the nations that are being self-determined but rather the peoples,” Armenian Deputy Foreign Minister Shavarsh Kocharyan told Russian-language news agency Regnum, commenting on Ilham Aliyev’s recent statement that the Armenians in Nagorno Karabakh cannot be self-determined.

“Otherwise according to the thesis as if the Turks and the Azerbaijani are one nation which [Ilham] inherited from his father together with the position of president, Azerbaijan cannot have independence,” said Kocharyan.