VIDEO: 'Why wouldn’t Serzh Sargsyan give up Shushi, if not, a war would have started?'

“I need to address Serzh Sargsyan's response, as it provides an answer to a very fundamental and important question,” Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated today from the podium of the National Assembly. 

“Yesterday, I presented the chain of events that occurred from 1998 to 2018 in this hall, and it is no coincidence that Serzh Sargsyan only addressed one episode from that discussion, saying that he never negotiated regarding the phased transfer of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue,” he noted.

“The clarification of this episode resolves a fundamental question, that the 1998 coup was not about saving Nagorno-Karabakh from something, but rather about seizing power. This is why he has addressed only this episode, because the clarification of this episode, without details, emphasizes that the 20-year history had a completely different context,” the Prime Minister declared.

“It is not at all coincidental that after the 2020 war, Serzh Sargsyan, referring back to 2018, says, ‘I wanted to remain Prime Minister at that time for the sake of the Karabakh issue’ after holding the presidential office twice... Their legitimacy for everything is the Karabakh issue,” Pashinyan pointed out.

The 2020 war was for Shushi; without Shushi, it was impossible to prevent or stop the war. This was announced by Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the parliament.

“What, did we not think that we could prevent the war or stop the war? It was impossible to stop or prevent the war without Shushi. Why wouldn’t Serzh Sargsyan give up Shushi? If he didn’t, a war would have started. And not only Shushi, but also part of Nagorno-Karabakh,” he stated.

For more details, watch the video.