“Nikol Pashinyan’s speech on April 13 and 14 is the end of the third Armenian republic. Pashinyan is the gravedigger of the third Armenian republic. He is even, in a sense, proud of that role, painfully,” said Avetik Chalabyan, co-founder of the ArAr Foundation, during an April 15 discussion. Avetik Chalabyan claims that from the end of the 44-day war to today, Pashinyan’s government continues to disorganize the army and the defense system.
“I can see with my own eyes what is happening. Due to the military secrets, I can not reveal many things, but the simplest things that are visible, which everyone is talking about, I want to say: there is no Chief of General Staff, there are no two main Deputy Chiefs of General Staff, the head of the Defense Army is extremely weak in Artsakh today: we saw what happened in Parukh. The Defense Army is being disbanded because conscripts from Armenia do not go to Artsakh anymore, and it is not written anywhere that such a thing should happen, it is Pashinyan’s personal decision. Well, you do not send conscripts, why do not you send subdivisions? The staff of the Defense Army has been reduced several times. The State Committee for Military Industry has not had a head for 1.5 years, last year most of the resources allocated to the committee were returned to the state budget. Many commanders have been fired following the famous letter.”
Avetik Chalabyan came to one conclusion from all this: every day of Nikol Pashinyan’s tenure endangers Armenia even more, because every day the army is disbanded so that Armenia does not have the resources to defend itself, so that any encroachment by Azerbaijan will not be resisted, to intimidate people that if there is no peace treaty, everyone will be massacred. After all this, one thing is clear for Avetik Chalabyan: everything, in the end, comes down to Pashinyan’s political line – to weaken or dismantle the army, about which he made a clear statement during the 2020 snap elections. In this context, speaking about the recent ArmHitech exhibition, the speaker said that it shows the strength of our military industry, but the army does not use it, as they artificially delay any contract. In the current situation, Avetik Chalabyan says, our choice is the following.
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“Either we get rid of Pashinyan’s government or we form a government that operates with a realistic, logical approach. You are in the circle of fire, there are enemies around you, you must strengthen your army, look for allies, and develop your internal civilian security. Today, if that Turkish army enters Yerevan from Margara, what will resist that army? The border is only 30 km long. Therefore, we need a government that will follow the path of reasonable defense. We have the resources for that inside the country and outside Armenia.”
The speaker does not see an alternative to change the current government, but he is convinced that the current authorities will provoke Turkey and Azerbaijan to provoke Armenia and Artsakh, as he did in Parukh. We need a government that will follow the path of reasonable defense. “The five positions in the Parukh-Khramort section were removed by Pashinyan’s order, and the Armenian forces withdrew from the positions and allowed the Azeris to enter. It was a special provocation that was specifically provoked by Pashinyan to intimidate us today. I do not rule out that he will cause new provocations.” According to Chalabyan, in parallel with the process of ousting Pashinyan from power, we must withstand possible provocations from Turkey and Azerbaijan. If we form a national government, we will get back what we lost, because first of all the Azeris are not fighting, their army is in a worse condition, and during all the recent clashes, the Azeris have suffered three times more losses. “We are just running a terror machine, which we must break, first within ourselves.”
Nelly GRIGORYAN
