VIDEO: You Brought the People of Artsakh to Protest for 5,000 Drams; You’re Bread Rascals, Says Pashinyan

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan accused the parliamentary opposition of using the people of Artsakh for internal political purposes. He stated, "Our commitment was—we had told them the way that needed to be taken to resolve that issue. It was you who, from these podiums, said and even called to say, 'No, don’t do that, do the exact opposite, rise up, all of you come.' Do you know why you called? Because you don’t care about the destiny of Artsakh. Since you were protesting there, you gathered no more than 3-4 thousand people, and you needed participants for the demonstration. You have poisoned the people of Artsakh against the government and the people of Armenia... You needed the Artsakh people to maintain your power after 1998; today, you have brought them as protest material for 5,000 drams to demonstrations. This is who you are, this is your truth, this is your politics, and now you want to do the same with the people of Armenia—to be provincial leaders in a gubernatorial manner, to become subdeacons burning incense at altars, under imperial rule. For you, the people of Artsakh have been, are, and will be a means of maintaining power. You don’t care about Artsakh, or Armenia, or the people of Armenia—you are bread rascals," Pashinyan declared.

Pashinyan’s comments were met with applause from the ruling party’s members.