According to the November 9 agreement, the parties should have stayed where the war ended, so why did we surrender Sanasar and Kovsakan? In a conversation with Aravot Daily, Gagik Melkonyan, former Deputy Minister of Defense and deputy of the Civil Contract faction, answered, “No, there were points according to which we had to return Aghdam, we had to give back Kelbajar, and the rest… there are points there, it was the border of Soviet Armenia and Soviet Azerbaijan. When you say we should have stayed where we were, no, look at the agreement. They had already reached Zangelan and were entering Meghri.”
Gagik Melkonyan’s response to our questions about how if you had not surrendered Sanasar and Kovsakan, they would not have entered Armenia was noteworthy. Melkonyan shrugged and countered, “You should not have surrendered them. Dear girl, you shouldn’t have surrendered them, who told you to do that?” We were confused by this reaction and said, “But you are in power, was I the one who surrendered them?” Gagik Melkonyan answered, “Wait a minute, you should have gone. Instead of attacking the government building, the building of the National Assembly on the 10th, you should have gone and held your positions there. The positions were there, it was not the building of the National Assembly, it was not the building of the government. You have always said, people, that is no place to gather, come help us. I have personally addressed the people several times, asking them to do it, we need you. They wanted all this to end very soon. They wanted the Turks to win and be done.” As far as how Melkonyan imagines the demarcation of the parts of Shurnukh and Vorotan with rulers, which he considers Azerbaijani territories, and which he accuses the “Karabakh” leaders of, can be read in tomorrow’s issue of Aravot.
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Hripsime Jebejyan
