In 2018, I Became Prime Minister; They Say, 'He Gave Lands, Gave, Gave, Will Give, Will Give'. Nikol Pashinyan

Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan insists that at no point in any negotiation package was it stated that a referendum should take place in Nagorno-Karabakh. “On the contrary, it is written that a nationwide referendum should reflect the free expression of the entire population of Nagorno-Karabakh,” he declared in the National Assembly.

Pashinyan noted that the supposed referendum, according to Azerbaijan's interpretation, should occur across all of Azerbaijan’s territory. The Prime Minister asked why, if there were good proposals, today's opposition did not pursue solutions at that time. “You should have pursued solutions back then if there was a good proposal; if you didn’t, then you need to answer the people as to why you did not pursue solutions. If the proposal was bad, then any subsequent proposal would be worse than the previous one,” he emphasized.

Nikol Pashinyan stated that the 2019 document is not an independent document and was not presented to him as a new proposal from the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group. “I still say that if we had a very good situation, the 2019 proposal represented the negotiating logic of the preceding period; at that time, you were in a coalition, you would have agreed to resolve it and move on. What do you want from us? I became Prime Minister in 2018; they say, ‘He gave lands, gave, gave, will give, will give’. For what purpose? I’ll tell you: that same package includes Serzh Sargsyan’s response on April 17, where he states, ‘We should have long since abandoned hope that Azerbaijan will relinquish its intention to resolve the Nagorno-Karabakh issue through war.’ Well, that situation existed then, there was a better situation; why didn’t it get resolved? Why did they come and say that negotiations are stalled, it's a deadlock, and war is on?’” he remarked.

Pashinyan noted that all packages included the resolution of the existing status of Nagorno-Karabakh at that time. “Resolution, nullification, and the creation of a new Armenian-Azerbaijani system from scratch; why don’t you say this, it is written black and white,” he concluded.