“Azerbaijan intended to have more victories in the north and south. Particularly, it wanted to occupy Mataghis, Martakert, or Fizuli. They believed that we- me specifically- needed to pick up the phone and beg the co-chairs to save us from the Azerbaijanis. Naturally, had we done so, we would have lost everything in the negotiations process,” third President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan said during the April Victory documentary produced by the director of the 5th TV channel, Harutyun Harutyunyan, which premiered on April 2nd.
Sargsyan said, “As we saw, our Armed Forces were mostly able to carry out their duties. Unfortunately, both the mass media and individuals who were paid massive grants began to present the military conflict as a loss for the Armenian side. This is unfortunate because it is not true. As far as the 800 hectares, I was the first to talk about it on the way back from Vienna. I must confess that I am not worried about that. Yes, I previously said a larger number than what we really lost. Why? If you remember, many Armenians were reading articles published in the Azerbaijani media during the April War and they spoke about how Azerbaijan occupied Talish. After the conflict, different numbers began to circulate- 5,000 hectares, 50 square kilometers, and more. Some people even presented photos or calculations. Then, they went to measure the size of the territory and found that the number I had said was more than what we actually had lost. If you want to know how much we lost centimeter by centimeter, it was actually less than 400 hectares.”
Luiza Sukiasyan
