Nikol Pashinyan has made a post on his Facebook page regarding the proposal for the first and second presidents of the Republic of Armenia to travel to Moscow.
“On October 20, the second and third presidents of Artsakh, Arkadi Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan, proposed organizing a meeting of the current and former leaders of Armenia and Artsakh, which during the days of the war would be an expression of national unity. After some discussion, I agreed. We stipulated that when they signal that Armenia’s former presidents are ready, I will organize the meeting.
Arkadi Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan said at our next meeting that a nuance had been added to the idea: Levon Ter-Petrosyan and Robert Kocharyan want to go to Moscow, have high-level meetings there, and have our meeting organized after their return, so that it becomes a kind of event for synthesizing information and a more informed discussion of the situation.
I said I was not opposed to the idea; I would even provide the state aircraft; let them go, have their meetings, and return. The former presidents of Artsakh, however, after my consent, raised one more issue. They said it was necessary for me to intercede with Russian President Vladimir Putin so that he would receive L. Ter-Petrosyan and R. Kocharyan as special envoys.
I answered as follows: I am in constant contact with the President of Russia. Some days I speak with him on the phone five or six times. Now, if he asks me, what do you have to say that you cannot tell me directly and want to say through special envoys, what am I to answer?
I proposed another option: to quickly organize a protocol visit to Moscow for Ter-Petrosyan and Kocharyan as former presidents, where they would be the guests of former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, who is also the deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, and within the framework of the visit to try to arrange courtesy meetings with the President of Russia, the Foreign Minister, and other high-ranking officials.
Arkadi Ghukasyan and Bako Sahakyan left, promising to discuss this option with Ter-Petrosyan and Kocharyan. It turned out that the latter were not very interested in the option I proposed. Bako Sahakyan unexpectedly declared to me that Ter-Petrosyan and Kocharyan have an agreement to meet with Sergei Lavrov.
In that case, what do they want from me? They have an agreement — let them go to Moscow and meet. It turned out the issue is R. Kocharyan’s passport, which is in court. I said, let them submit a petition to the court, and I will ask that the prosecution not object to the return of the passport. And so it happened: the court returned Kocharyan’s passport, but Ter-Petrosyan and Kocharyan never went to Moscow,” Pashinyan wrote.
Viktor Soghomonian, head of the office of the second President of the Republic of Armenia, Robert Kocharyan, has responded to Nikol Pashinyan’s statements.
“I was thinking of not responding, or simply saying, see what I said yesterday. But in connection with this writing of Pashinyan’s, I remembered a story.
Someone asks his friend: is it true that our neighbor won a car in the lottery? He answers: approximately true, except it was not the neighbor but his brother, not in the lottery but in a casino, not a car but an apartment, and he did not win it but lost it.
Lies and distortion are inseparable from Nikol”:
