“We were sent on a business trip by the people gathered in the square to present the public demand for Nikol Pashinyan’s resignation, that is, Nikol Pashinyan, who holds the post of Prime Minister, who failed to defend Armenian interests in the Nagorno-Karabakh peace process, led to war and defeat, and admitted that he could have prevented the war and avoided thousands of casualties, but did not do so. In July 2021, he promised to return the captives in a month or two, but we still have captives,” said Armen Rustamyan, a member of the Armenia faction, during a question-and-answer session on May 4, reading the demand. He came with some of the deputies of the same bloc in T-shirts with the flag of Artsakh.
He stressed, “Nikol Pashinyan promised in the pre-election program that he would pursue a policy of the final clarification of the status of Artsakh through the full realization of Artsakh’s right to self-determination, to assert that the people of Artsakh can not survive under the subordination of Azerbaijan, which prioritizes the de-occupation of Artsakh territories, but in fact, he implements the ‘Artsakh is Azerbaijan and that’s it’ propaganda propaganda and supports the lowering of the status bar of Artsakh, that is, the Turkish-Azerbaijani view of recognizing Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan.”
Rustamyan also enumerated the promises of other spheres, saying that Pashinyan did not fulfill them, and one of them had a tragic end recently. “Speaking against the judiciary, standing in a motorcade under a red light, surrendering to a pedestrian, Pashinyan’s motorcade killed the woman, her unborn child. He is not legitimate, he does not have a mandate for the state to make new concessions; he must resign. In case of proving the existence of any of this issue, any self-respecting prime minister would resign. Is there an answer to this demand now?”
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Pashinyan said from the podium, “You say that the process has failed in terms of protection of Armenian interests. Serzh Sargsyan failed the negotiation process and he confessed this from the NA tribune on April 17, 2018, saying that the process has stopped and does not inspire optimism. It stands still because Azerbaijan’s demands are unacceptable and unrealistic for us. He announced from this tribune about the future war, saying that we should not hope for a long time that Azerbaijan will not try to solve the Artsakh issue through war,” Pashinyan continued, referring to the accusation that he had confessed that he could have stopped the war․
“I said from the NA podium on September 27, 2020 that I can stop it right now, and for that there is a condition to agree that Artsakh should be a unit with the status of an autonomous region, that is, within Azerbaijan. If we combine this logic with the logic put forward by Serzh Sargsyan, we will get the following: in order to prevent the war, we had to accept the unrealistic, unacceptable demands of Azerbaijan, that is, to leave Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan.” As for the accusation of lowering the status bar of Artsakh, Nikol Pashinyan mentioned, “At the moment when you were part of the government, when Armenia accepted the Madrid principles as a basis for negotiations, from that moment you recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan.”
A noise was heard from the opposition, Alen Simonyan warned Anna Grigoryan that he would ask her to leave. “I will prove it. Now I will make a very important revelation. Respond and I will tell you.” Armen Rustamyan responded, “Time will not allow us to explain that you do not know the settlement of the Artsakh issue from the beginning, and you continue now. If it seems that you can justify your failures by blaming your predecessors, you are wrong. In 2018, I still asked you, in order to become prime minister, are you obliged to implement what the people of Artsakh have envisaged by Article 175 of their constitution? Talk about it, why were you not guided by the responsibility of fulfilling the will of the people of Artsakh? Now what does it matter who did what at the time? You were the prime minister, you were obliged to fulfill that will, you gave that promise.
Then you said that you didn’t even see a theoretical opportunity to remove Artsakh from Azerbaijan. If you were on that point of view, do you remain prime minister, what can you do to leave Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan ” Pashinyan responded that Rustamyan was not given an hour limit. “Ah, you don’t want to hear it? We were waiting for that, so say that.” There was a noise in the hall, Alen Simonyan shouted “bravo,” the others applauded. “As you have always run away, you will always run away,” Pashinyan said with a smile, adding, “Long live the Armenian democracy.”
The opposition deputies left the hall to applause. “Nikol, Prime Minister,” shouted one of the Civil Contract deputies. There was applause for a few minutes. “As soon as I said that a revelation would be made, they ran away,” Pashinyan added. “Without Nikol Armenia,” shouted Alen Simonyan, applauding, and gesturing at the opposition deputies to leave.
Luiza Sukiasyan
