‘I Was Ready to Bear the Stigma of a Traitor and Solve the Country's Issues’: Serzh Sargsyan’s Interview with the BBC

The third President of Armenia, Serzh Sargsyan, gave an interview to a BBC film crew in Yerevan, discussing the war, Nikol Pashinyan, and the recent parliamentary election results in the country.

In the interview with BBC's Russian service, Sargsyan asserted that his desire to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict and the reconciliation process compelled him to remain in power in 2018, following his second term as president.

However, massive protests in 2018 led to Sargsyan's resignation and Pashinyan's rise to power, which Sargsyan views as part of an enemy agenda to hand over Karabakh. Sargsyan himself does not support theories regarding a deliberate surrender of Karabakh, regarding the circumstances instead as a result of gross mistakes and foolishness.

“We do not claim that military operations began solely as a result of Armenia's mistakes. No. Azerbaijan has always wanted to resolve the issue through military means,” Sargsyan noted.

But regarding the outbreak of a new war in September 2020, in the absence of a tough international response, Sargsyan partially blames Pashinyan. He connects this to the new government's gross foreign policy errors, which were spearheaded by liberal activists lacking experience in state and diplomatic services.