Former Authorities Called Us Land Surrenderers, So They Knew It Would All Collapse on Our Heads: Lena Nazaryan

Regardless of how we reject the internal policies pursued by Serge Sargsyan and Robert Kocharyan and highlight numerous mistakes, it turns out that they managed to maneuver and delay the war through "games" with Russia. In this regard, Deputy Speaker of the National Assembly Lena Nazaryan stated in an interview with Aravot.am: "Look at what has happened. In 2014-2015, there was already an international consensus, including with Russia's agreement, as a co-chair of the OSCE Minsk Group, that the 7 regions should be returned. There was a clear consensus that was no longer subject to change because the OSCE Minsk Group had been working for many years, and in the end, they had to present some results. They had decided to present that as a result. Naturally, the former authorities knew very well about that decision and chose the strategy of indefinitely prolonging the status quo. But it is clear that it is not possible to prolong it indefinitely. And when the revolution took place, we came to power, the first accusation that arose was this so-called 'land surrenderer'. Honestly, I found it incomprehensible where the basis of that accusation came from when not a single member of the political team had even mentioned it. Yet we were called land surrenderers; therefore, they knew that all of this would collapse on our heads, and their foresightedness meant just that. Were they not really prophets to foresee how events would unfold? They saw that this would happen and shamelessly exaggerated the situation by calling us land surrenderers and also removing flexibility, radicalizing all of this."

When asked whether Nikol Pashinyan was unaware of the burden he was taking on, Lena Nazaryan responded: "Nikol Pashinyan was aware. After being elected Prime Minister, his first visit was to Stepanakert. Please revisit the press conference in Stepanakert. The Prime Minister there states that we need to increase the security of Artsakh and Armenia. Thus, it was clear to him that either we surrender those 7 regions or prepare for war. And the Prime Minister sincerely did not believe that surrendering the 7 regions without clarifying the status of Nagorno-Karabakh would be just and beneficial for us. He did not believe that, and that is why, at that press conference, in the early days of his candidature, he said that we need to increase the security of Armenia and Artsakh. And that was done to the best of our ability."