Pashinyans Don't Become Prime Ministers in Authoritarian Countries, Sharmazanov

Today, at the PACE meeting in Strasbourg, the Azerbaijani delegation criticized PACE for previously giving a positive assessment to the former authorities of Armenia. The representatives from Baku characterized the former Armenian government as 'criminal and anti-democratic.'

This was stated by Edvard Sharmazanov, spokesperson for the Republican Party of Armenia, on his Facebook page.

'As a representative of the former government, I must say that there have never been mutual 'compliments' exchanged between us and the Azerbaijanis.'

'People with normal thinking and analytical skills understand what it can mean when Aliyev, who declared Armenia as Azerbaijan's 'historical territory' and unleashed war against Artsakh in April 2016, suddenly becomes 'cultured' in a matter of hours for the Armenian Prime Minister. But that is another topic. Now to the essence.'

The representatives of our delegation have responded to the anti-Armenian statements made by Azerbaijani MPs at PACE. Responding is certainly appropriate and naturally commendable.

However, when several months ago Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan proudly labeled the former government of Armenia as an 'authoritarian regime' from a high podium at the UN, why were you silent?

Why didn’t you make Pashinyan aware that pride, while commendable, and inexperience, while understandable, can lead to significant consequences? Every word and punctuation mark is crucial when speaking from such podiums; those platforms are not the Republic Square, and the public in front of them is not naive and candid, but rather gullible.

Or did you believe that the revolutionary agenda must be pushed forward at any cost, even if it meant harming the state?

Why didn’t you speak up that Pashinyans do not appear in parliaments of authoritarian countries, let alone become prime ministers?

At the time when we were saying: 'Guys, don’t do this, you are discrediting the country,' we were met with calls of 'boo-hoo' from the members of the Republican Party, claiming that the 'unwilling' National Assembly is obstructing our progress,' Sharmazanov noted in his post.