Accepting the decision No. 24.4259, "Peace Platform for Nagorno Karabakh. The opportunity to return Armenians, "the Swiss Federal Council has made significant progress in overcoming a diplomatic deadlock in the South Caucasus.
Since the two chambers of the Swiss parliament now support the initiative, the Federal Council has an obligation to ensure the dialogue platform between Azerbaijan and the Armenians displaced from Nagorno-Karabakh.
Former Armenian Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian wrote about this on his Facebook page.
"But this is not just a new diplomatic format. This is the first real, institutional experience, to vote for a whole and brutally silenced people by a neutral state.
The forced deportation of the entire Armenian population of Nagorno Karabakh in 2023 was not only a humanitarian tragedy. It was also geopolitical and moral collapse.
This initiative of Switzerland aims to walk around the consequences of ethnic cleansing and to defend the cornerstone of international law, the right to return. It is important to note that this diplomatic process can come out of its borders. It can be turned into a wider international mechanism, perhaps even reviving the OSCE Minsk Group, if Armenia will take the right steps. But it requires more than just appreciation.
This requires strategic clarity, diplomatic courage, and most importantly, new guidance in Yerevan.
His indifference, the rights and fate of Nagorno-Karabakh's rights and fate at the center of Armenia's diplomatic agenda, has created a vacuum, which Baku has filled with unilateral actions and reviews.
As long as Pashinyan posts, Armenia has no reputation, no will, to use the opportunities open by Switzerland and other international players. For a very long time, Azerbaijan dictates the conditions, conditioning the return issue with the uncertain and non-compliance of "reintegration" while eroding the Armenian cultural and historical heritage of the region.
Every week, without a coordinated international response, it deepens the irreversibility of the Azerbaijani campaign, not only physically, but also to eliminate the Armenian presence.
However, now thanks to this Swiss initiative, there is a credible framework through which the right to return can become real, not theoretical. Switzerland's neutrality and attempt to host difficult negotiations give real potential to these efforts. This decision coincides with several international legal documents, including the temporary measures of the International Justice Court of 2023. In November and the European Parliament's two resolutions in 2024, calling for the safe, dignified and voluntary return of Armenians. This rarely coincides with the legal, moral and diplomatic momentum.
But what is missing? Political will. First of all, in Armenia. Imagine a management that actively cooperates with Switzerland to form the agenda and structure of the Peace platform, ensures the proper representation of the Armenians of Nagorno-Karabakh and working with the comprehensive negotiation format to turn that platform into a comprehensive negotiation format.
Such a management can use this platform to demand real guarantees, security mechanisms, release of Armenian prisoners of prisoners, international presence on the site.
This will put the responsibility on Baku, or to collapse, or to collide with the growing international pressure. If we want to take advantage of this operation of the load, it is necessary to start changing the leadership in Yerevan.
It's time for new guidance, such who realizes that history do not write those who are waiting for salvation, but those who choose to lead.
Switzerland has opened a door. "Armenia will pass through that door, it depends not from Baku, nor Brussels, but only from the Armenian people," he wrote.
