Armenian PM Nikol Pashinyan, when pressed by reporters during a press conference today confessed that his government recognizes Nagorno Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan.

Pashinyan, on several occasions, has said that Armenia and Azerbaijan recognize each other’s territorial integrity and borders.

This raised the question whether Yerevan now believes that Artsakh is de jure a part of Azerbaijan.

Before the 2020 Karabakh war, Pashinyan publicly announced that Artsakh was a part of Armenia.

"Azerbaijan's 86,600 square kilometers also includes Nagorno Karabakh, but it should also be noted that we say that the issue of the rights and security of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians should be discussed in the Baku-Stepanakert format," Pashinyan said during the conference.

When asked to clarify his government’s position on Artsakh, a visibly riled Pashinyan retorted that all former Armenian administrations have recognized the territorial integrity of Azerbaijan.

“How clearer can I be?” he said.

Pashinyan again called for direct talks between Baku and Stepanakert, the Artsakh capital, regarding the rights and security of Armenians there.

"We consider it important to create international guarantees for these negotiations. We mean, for example, that the issue of the rights and security of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians can simply be forgotten, and Azerbaijan continues the policy of ethnic cleansing and genocide of the Nagorno-Karabakh Armenians with the use of force. We consider it important to have guarantees that this policy will not continue," said Pashinyan.