There is no doubt that I am the number-one official who is responsible for what happened, in that context I bear responsibility, there is no misinterpretation here. Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this Monday, during his online press conference, and referring to the question as to whether he accepts that the recent Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) war is the consequence of his policy.
"I also realize that due to this fact, as well as due to my previous activities, I shall stand before the judgment of our people. But in order for the judge—the people—to be able to come to conclusions in this case, he must know all the circumstances of the case; that is, there must be a conversation, listening to the same soldiers, listening to the opposition, listening to the government, listening to everyone is a very important and inseparable part of this process. And I consider it important to record what happened. And it happened that as of May 2018, the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict settlement negotiation had crossed the point of no return, when in fact the issue had entered around the "territories for nothing" logic. If you look closely at the media field, you will see that many [former ruling] Republicans today show their notes for 2018, the predictions where they had recorded that there will be defeats around Nagorno-Karabakh, lands will be handed over, this or that will be done. There are three options here: either those people are prophets, or our government, or our government or I personally am a conspirator that came to power especially to create problems for Artsakh, and there is a third option: those people just knew at that time as to on which point the negotiation process on the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict is left and what inevitable demands and consensus are set for the Republic of Armenia," Nikol Pashinyan stated.
The Prime Minister presented what he did to prevent this from happening. "My policy was as follows: to try to disagree with all that, to try to change the logic, and in fact, now we can say, unfortunately, we did not succeed because we were faced with a situation when there was an international consensus that the territories must be handed over to Azerbaijan without any preconditions," he said.
Nikol Pashinyan also stated that he has done everything to increase Armenia's resistance in order to increase the combat-readiness and level of armament of the Armed Forces during these two and a half years. "[But] they accuse us of the opposite things; for example, they say that ‘You [the Armenian party] signed a paper to hand over certain territories,’ but on the other hand, they accuse us that we did not sign that paper earlier to hand over those territories. We are also accused of having casualties during the war, and we are accused of taking such steps to avoid casualties and to get our 20,000 to 35,000 group out of the blockade, and the responsibility for all this lies with me in the first place. But to fully bear that responsibility, I consider it necessary that all the circumstances be clarified in detail for the public," he added.
To the question, “You announced earlier that you start the negotiations from your own point, now what is your own point?” Nikol Pashinyan responded: "By saying my own point, I meant that we try and will try not to agree with that logic. That was that point, and in fact I referred to it in response to the previous question. As for the new point, we must analyze and formulate the agenda we have around the current situation; in particular, on the issue of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh. The most important issue is that the people of Nagorno-Karabakh must live there. The issue of the status of Nagorno-Karabakh must be put by us at the basis of the negotiation process with new urgency, as well as the humanitarian, communication, transport, and other issues."
To another question that various political forces voice that they can make the points of the signed statement more pro-Armenian, and why there is no dialogue with those forces, Nikol Pashinyan said that he has not received such a proposal. "This document is not an expression of political wishes, but of a specific military situation which, unfortunately, we had in the given situation. In fact, to change back the points of the document means to change the military situation which I think is not a realistic task today to make such a wording. As for the future negotiations, there are many provisions in that document that need to be commented on, and during them all the proposals will be brought together and we will try to implement the best ones,” the Armenian PM added.
