On December 24, during Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s online press conference, the question raised by Aravot was ignored. Nikol Pashinyan was asked many questions, combining the questions sent by different media outlets by topic. Among the issues related to the Armenian-Turkish relations, we expected that the question sent by Aravot would be raised, but it was not.
Aravot sent the following question to Nikol Pashinyan: “Mr. Pashinyan, you, as a journalist-editor, will prove that a journalist’s question should not receive a “yes” or “no” answer, but taking into account your previous public statements about Azerbaijan and Turkey, let me ask, do you really not know if Azerbaijan and Turkey want to destroy us or not? What do you need so that you, as the leader of the country, can finally get the answer to that question after the war, at the current stage of regional developments? Moreover, in an interview with Spiegel Weekly on October 8, 2020, during the war, you yourself stated that 100 years later, Turkey is returning to the South Caucasus to continue its policy of the Armenian Genocide.” It should be added that the Armenian government had previously presented several preconditions to the media so that their questions would be accepted and voiced during the press conference. One of those preconditions was, for example, that the question should be sent with the official copy of the media outlet, mentioning the journalist’s name, surname, each media outlet did not have the right to ask more than one question, and so on. We met all these conditions, so it is still unclear what was the purpose of ignoring the question raised by Aravot.
Tatev HARUTYUNYAN
