Russia Does Not Disclose Its Plans to Anyone. I Don’t Know. Levon Ter-Petrosyan

In order to know what I need, I must understand Russia's plans. We know Aliyev's plans well enough, but I do not know Russia's. Russia does not disclose its plans to anyone. This was stated by the first President of Armenia, Levon Ter-Petrosyan, during an interview with Petros Ghazaryan today.

“Today, Russia has one interlocutor in Armenia, and that is the country's leader. I also have connections, I meet with the Russian ambassador, Robert (Robert Kocharyan - ed.) has more connections in Moscow, but neither they will tell me nor Robert, today the responsible person in Armenia is Pashinyan. They tell Pashinyan. I am confident that Russia tells Pashinyan with all sincerity what they intend to do in this region and about the future of Armenia and Nagorno-Karabakh in general. Pashinyan has another problem; he does not even understand what the Russians are telling him. I am not someone who expresses opinions on things I do not know,” he said.

When asked what to expect if the Russian side withdraws from the territory of Armenia, the first president of Armenia replied that he does not know, as he is not a prophet, but anything is possible, even war. “I repeat, let no one boast that they know Russia's plans; I only know one thing: they have clear plans, and they are not short-term.”

In response to the question of whether we should establish direct relations with Turkey now, Levon Ter-Petrosyan said that not only now but a long time ago we should have been thinking about it. “Aliyev is also saying, ‘pull your hands away from Karabakh, let’s become brothers today.’ Now we need to consider when, how, and in what way. The first task of a state leader is never to be cunning, because it would be self-deception to think that you can be more cunning than those powerful ones; they will listen to you quietly, praise you, then go away and laugh at you. If I had been cunning, I would never have been taken seriously. There is a new phenomenon that is an abomination which has never existed before; there has never been such a coarse dialogue between the leaders of Armenia and Azerbaijan, filled with mutual insults and humiliations. This has not happened during Robert's time, nor during Serge's (Serge Sargsyan - ed.) time; this is an expression of ‘nikolism,’” he added.