Let Him Have the Courage to Name Names as Supreme Commander: Ohanian on Pashinyan

“Nikola Pashinyan was also making separate accusations in parliament yesterday regarding various military personnel and former officials, blaming them for the failure to bring back the 'Lalé Tepe' during the April war. It was publicly alleged that Pashinyan ordered the return of the enemy-occupied 'Lalé Tepe' peak at all costs to demonstrate that Serzh Sargsyan gave it up but he took it back, however, the operation failed, resulting in approximately 800 casualties.

Pashinyan placed the responsibility for that operation on the generals, and also made indirect references towards the former Minister of Defense, General- Lieutenant Seyran Ohanian's son, Arthur Ohanian. “The operation started and was successfully implemented for a few hours and did not succeed because one of the tank units did not do its part and did not participate in the operation as planned. Now, why that did not happen, I do not know. The commander of that unit was the son of one of the generals who is currently active in the opposition; he did not fulfill his duties. Now I don’t know, perhaps in these mixed times, I will investigate later; maybe ‘17’ called him and said, ‘What are you doing? Your enemy is not there; he is in Yerevan, cancel that operation and come assault the government building.’ Perhaps this newly revealed opposition figure called his son himself, and his political father called him and said, ‘Your opponent is not there, turn the tanks toward Yerevan.’ We will clarify,” Pashinyan manipulatively stated.

Seyran Ohanian expressed his bewilderment that Pashinyan spoke about everything that day except for the execution of the government's program for 2020, for which he went to parliament. He further observed that Pashinyan was once again justifying himself and spreading false information from the podium, as he apparently does not have control over the situation.

Addressing the insinuations and accusations directed at himself and his son, Seyran Ohanian said, “I have served the state my whole life, and when the newly revealed opposition leader says ‘opposition,’ he must first realize himself and the system he governs. They are the opposition to our state; they are the opposition to all our values. Let him think about that. As for the insinuations directed at my son, my son, like me, has served the Republic of Armenia and Artsakh his entire life. I have never helped him advance in those ranks. What he has achieved, he has achieved on his own. And he has been one of the commanders of that notorious operation. Here too, Pashinyan shows he does not have control over the situation. First of all, we do not have several tank units as he says; my son has been the commander of a motorized rifle unit. Both units have mostly fulfilled the tasks set before them, but since there was no comprehensive provision and planning until the end, the outcome has been as it has. Let them figure out what happened. By the way, I will say that my son was wounded during that operation; after being wounded, his unit mostly reached the final point of that issue with his subordinates. How much they did not reach, what losses we had, let them investigate and clarify,” Seyran Ohanian stated.

He also recalled that just a few days ago he expressed the following sentiment to several of his fellow generals, which he repeated in our conversation: “I apologize to all my fellow generals, I apologize once again and multiple times. May all of their children be healthy and safe, and may none be killed or wounded. But my son is the only general's son, and I am the only general whose son was wounded during this last war. I am proud of my son, and no one can exploit that or be assured that my son has served his homeland and has executed the orders of the military leadership, and no one from the outside—neither ‘17 plus,’ nor ‘107 plus,’ nor even I, who have not had any official or military function or leverage—played a role in my son fulfilling the state’s or military task set before him.”

Perhaps it is also your generals' fault that at the time you could not muster sufficient will and determination, so that today Pashinyan would not have the opportunity to point fingers from the podium and shift all the blame onto you, we noted. “Let me say the following. When we talk about generals, we should talk about active military generals, commanders. Those people, including myself, who have not been in the army, apart from advising at some point, have not had any management levers and could not have any effective influence on combat operations. Therefore, when Pashinyan speaks about generals, for us to be able to respond specifically to whom he refers to, let him have the courage, first as the supreme commander and as an individual at the head of the government, to name names. If he does not name names, then all of this pertains to the generals in active duty in the army,” he said.

As for the opposition figures, do the generals in the Homeland Salvation Movement, former presidents not bear their responsibility for the fact that the movement factually failed its programs, unable to achieve a resolution for six months, and today Pashinyan has already gone on the counteroffensive and blames them for everything? “You know, they have been active so that this government resigns, but as you saw, that resignation did not happen. But I believe, however, that they have achieved some part of their aims, as there will be snap elections. As for the defeat in this war, the state has suffered defeat with all its structures, but the Prime Minister is at the head of the executive power. And no one says that the Prime Minister or the state has lost alone. The entire state system has lost with all the managers of its structures and the head of the government,” Seyran Ohanian noted,” the newspaper writes.

You can read the full article in today’s issue of the newspaper.