No Guarantee That New Document Will Not Be Signed: Zakaryan on Pashinyan's Statement

We believe that the processes taking place in Syunik are very complex, but there is actually a simple solution: get rid of Nikol. The more the Armenian people struggle with Nikol, the more calamities will follow one after another for them. This was stated by former Deputy Defense Minister Artak Zakaryan in an interview with Tert.am, reflecting on Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan's statement during a Security Council meeting that negotiations in Syunik have not ended and that Armenia has never discussed, nor will it discuss, the issue of the Zangezur corridor.

“Keeping the capitulator in the prime minister's office and creating an illusion of negotiation processes will gradually lead to the weakening of all types of security tools of the Republic of Armenia. These are visible realities. The capitulator is also suspected of treason; the negotiation process he conducted was completely failing, which led to the unsuccessful war, and the analyses lead to only one conclusion: it was a purposefully failed war. It is not the people and the army that failed, but the political power. The same political power has transferred the chain of failures to the security zone of the Republic of Armenia,” Zakaryan noted.

He emphasized that the Armenian people have no information about the content of the negotiations regarding Armenia's sovereign territory. “In the November 9 statement, the word ‘communication’ is written, which will be controlled by the forces of the Russian Federal Service. Why is communication not discussed in the same way, for example, through Ijevan or another section, but specifically emphasizing the territory of Syunik? Azerbaijan and Turkey will do everything to ensure that it is called a corridor, and the West is also helping them in this matter. It is the West that allows the Turkish to enter the sovereign territory of Armenia and not leave from there, and then forces Armenia to make concessions to leave the area. Now we do not know what Nikol Pashinyan will sign in the end,” said the former deputy minister of defense.

He pointed out that after the presence of Azerbaijani military personnel in Syunik, several Security Council meetings have taken place, and then he raised the question: has anything changed in Armenia? “Nothing has changed; on the contrary, everything has gotten worse. Nikol Pashinyan is prolonging his power under the pressure of Azerbaijan and Turkey so that he can resolve the issues of communications in Syunik, communication that will ultimately turn into a corridor. There is no guarantee that Nikol is protecting the interests of Armenia; for this reason, I think that in Syunik, there will not be communication, but a corridor. During the 44-day war, he repeatedly said we would win, but it turned out that not only were we not winning, but we lost everything. We should not wait for elections; we should remove these capitulators because before the elections, Pashinyan might sign documents,” Zakaryan said, adding that he also considers it likely that under Pashinyan's hand, not only a corridor but also a large part of the road could fall under Azerbaijani control.

In response to the observation that according to Pashinyan, there are information warfare agents of Azerbaijan operating in Armenia, Zakaryan replied, “The one who has filled Azerbaijan’s ‘watermill’ has been him throughout his entire activity.” When addressing the question of expectations from the CSTO, the former deputy minister of defense responded, “My specific expectation from the CSTO is that they call on Nikol Pashinyan, as he represents the main security threat in the South Caucasus, the instigator of wars and a failed capitulator, to leave Armenia and allow normal political leaders to come to power, so that Armenia can become a normal member of the CSTO.”