During the question-and-answer session with the Government in the RA National Assembly, Armen Rustamyan, a deputy of the opposition “Hayastan” faction, said that they were sent by the people gathered in the square to present the public demand to Nikol Pashinyan. He then read the statement demanding Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation.
“Nikol Pashinyan, who holds the office of Prime Minister of Armenia, by failing in the task of protecting Armenian interests in the negotiation process of the Artsakh conflict, brought war and defeat, admitted that he could have prevented the war and avoided thousands of casualties, but did not do so. In June 2021, he promised to return the prisoners within 1-2 months, but to this day we still have prisoners. Through his pre-election programme, he promised to pursue a policy of clarifying the final status of Artsakh through the full realisation of the right to self-determination, insisted that the people of Artsakh cannot survive under Azerbaijani subordination and that he considers the liberation of Artsakh’s territories a priority, but in fact he is implementing the slogan ‘Karabakh is Azerbaijan, and that’s it’ and defending the Turkish-Azerbaijani viewpoint of lowering the bar for Artsakh’s status, namely recognising Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan,” presented Rustamyan, declaring that “Nikol Pashinyan is not legitimate, does not have the mandate to lead our state to new concessions, and must resign.”
The RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, responding to the opposition deputy, said: “Serzh Sargsyan confessed to this in his statement made from the podium of the National Assembly on April 17, 2018, saying that the negotiation process is stalled because Azerbaijan’s demands are unrealistic and unacceptable to us. And it was Serzh Sargsyan who declared from this podium about the war, saying, ‘We should no longer hope for a long time that Azerbaijan will not try to solve the Karabakh issue through war.'”
Regarding the observation about stopping the war, Pashinyan responded that on September 27, 2020, he addressed citizens and deputies from the podium of the National Assembly, noting that the war could be stopped if they agree that Nagorno-Karabakh would be a unit similar to the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast, that is, within the composition of Azerbaijan: “If we combine this logic with Serzh Sargsyan’s logic, the following results: to prevent the war, it was necessary to accept Azerbaijan’s unrealistic and unacceptable demands.”
Regarding the statement about lowering the bar, Pashinyan said: “I want to note that your government too, you were part of the government at that time, the Republic of Armenia accepted the Madrid Principles as the basis for negotiations, from that moment you recognised Karabakh as part of Azerbaijan.”
In response, Rustamyan declared that Pashinyan does not master the negotiation process, to which Nikol Pashinyan responded: “I am going to make a very important revelation now.” After the Prime Minister’s statement, the opposition members left the session hall, stating that they did not want to listen.
In response to that, Nikol Pashinyan said: “The moment I said a revelation was coming, they fled.”
“Oh, you don’t want to listen, then just say you don’t want to listen, you’ve always fled, and that’s how you’ll flee. Long live Armenian democracy, the moment I said a revelation was coming, they fled.”
The deputies of the “Civil Contract” faction applauded as the opposition members left.
