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Radio Free Europe/ Radio Liberty (8 December 2020)

The office of the former Armenian President Serzh Sarkisian has declined to expound on a leaked audio recording of a conversation the former president had four years ago with Belarusian leader Alyaksandr Lukashenka about a deal with Azerbaijan concerning seven districts around the breakaway Nagorno-Karabakh region.

In a statement issued on December 8, Sarkisian's office said that the conversation in question, during which Sarkisian and Lukashenka talked about a possible deal with Azerbaijan regarding the seven districts around Nagorno-Karabakh that at the time were under the control of Armenian armed forces, took place in Yerevan on October 16, 2016, at a closed gathering during a session of the Collective Security Treaty Organization (CSTO).

It added that it was "unclear" how the recording appeared on the Internet on December 7. The recording sparked a controversy in Armenia, as Lukashenka can be heard calling on Sarkisian to turn the districts back over to Azerbaijan, saying that the CSTO should place its joint peacekeepers in the breakaway region to secure the safety of ethnic Armenians there.

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