‘The General Staff did not provide any unreliable information to Pashinyan’: Tiran Khachatryan

The Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces could not report fabricated information to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan; however, I was neither next to Nikol Pashinyan nor to Onik Gasparyan during the report. This was stated by Tiran Khachatryan, the former deputy chief of the RA Armed Forces General Staff, in an interview with 24News, referring to Pashinyan's statements made yesterday in the National Assembly regarding the results of the 44-day war.

When asked whether there were inconsistencies between the General Staff and the Defense Army, and how it happens that Arayik Harutyunyan reported different information while the General Staff reported another, Khachatryan responded, “I repeat, I was neither next to Nikol Pashinyan when accepting the report, nor was I standing next to the one reporting.”

“Let no one think that the General Staff could report anything fabricated. I do not know the details of what was reported, but no unreliable information has been provided by the General Staff. As for the statements made by Pashinyan, Onik Gasparyan can respond; he attends the sessions of the investigative committee regarding the 44-day war, and those questions will likely be posed to him, and he will respond,” he added.

In response to the observation that Nikol Pashinyan had mentioned an earlier proposal from the Russian President to halt the war, stating that if the proposal had been accepted, there would have been over 90% refugees in Shushi, a road would have been constructed to Shushi, and border guards would have been positioned in Meghri, Khachatryan replied that he is not aware of those proposals.

To the question of whether those proposals were ever presented to him, the former deputy chief of the General Staff responded, “Such matters were never discussed with us. It is possible that it was discussed with the Chief of the General Staff; I am not aware. I do not know what proposals were made to him, how real or how false they are. Regarding participating in the session of the National Assembly investigating the circumstances of the 44-day war, I will never change my decision to participate; I have expressed my opinion and attitude many times, and it remains unchanged.”