Truth Can Only Be Revealed Through Regime Change: Onik Gasparyan

The Office of the Security Council has released a recording of the session from September 30, 2020, concerning the report of former Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces Onik Gasparyan.

Earlier, the Security Council had disclosed written information regarding the same issue, when Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated from the National Assembly podium that Onik Gasparyan did not indicate during the first days of the war that the situation was bad and that military operations should be halted.

Today, Onik Gasparyan demanded the publication of his entire unedited report. Regarding whether his request would be fulfilled, General Onik Gasparyan told 168.am, "I am confident that even if they publish it, it will be edited. The truth can only be revealed through regime change."

It is difficult to make a definitive claim about the aims or resolutions of the remote debate between the authorities and the former Chief of the General Staff; perhaps it is a way to distract society from key issues or maybe it is a form of pressure directed towards Onik Gasparyan or the Armed Forces, including current generals.

Security Council Secretary Armen Grigoryan also stated that the General Staff led by Onik Gasparyan was tasked with preparing an analysis-report on the outcomes of the Artsakh war. "It was the General Staff preparing the report about the war, and at the Security Council meeting planned for this month, the staff was supposed to report on the results of the war. If we intended to shift responsibility onto the General Staff, why would we have instructed them to prepare that report?" he noted in an interview with CivilNet in March.

General Gasparyan denied the claim of receiving an 'order' for an analysis from the Security Council in his conversation with 168.am. "They did not order it; I presented that a detailed analysis is being prepared in the General Staff," emphasized O. Gasparyan. And since Onik Gasparyan is no longer the head of the General Staff, it will essentially be the current head Artak Davtyan who presents it.