Yesterday at Yerablur, an incident took place between Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan and Yerkir.am reporter Lia Sargsyan. When the reporter said, “Mr. Prime Minister, there are soldiers buried here who died in Shushi, but you announced from the highest podium in the country that Shushi is an Azerbaijani city,” Pashinyan called out to her and gave her a command: “Write what I said on a piece of paper. Personally bring me a piece of paper that has what I said during a live stream, and I will answer your question.”
The reporter wrote the quote on a large poster and brought it to the government building on Friday. She also drew two boxes for the Prime Minister to indicate whether Shushi is Armenian or Azerbaijani. “Let’s wait and see if the Prime Minister will come out and answer my question. Then, we will make our conclusions regarding the Prime Minister’s position,” the reporter said.
Residents of the Kashatagh region were gathered by the government. Some of Pashinyan’s supporters got upset with the reporter. They grabbed the poster from her hands and started to tear it.
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Literary critic Serzh Srapionyan also wrote about that incident with the reporter on his Facebook page. “A while ago, a leader of an enemy nation announced that “the population of Shushi was 98 percent Azerbaijani in the 1990s” in order to lie to the people of the world. And so, even a student who attended school every day but dropped out would see that Shushi is an Azerbaijani city. And now, a short time after that, another leader who is not an enemy, but someone close who holds the number one position in the country rose to the highest podium in what we can call our homeland and asked a question in front of the whole world, saying, “So, you mean the city that has a population of over 90 percent Azerbaijanis is Armenian?” Compare these two statements. If you consider them to have opposite meanings, then what was perceived was not said. The difference in percentages doesn’t count because anything above 90 percent can be between 91 and 98. Even 99. Therefore, if the meanings aren’t the same, then they are close enough.”
Hripsime Jebejyan
