Video: There Was No Topic of ‘Lele Tepe’ - Pashinyan

On October 5, if I am not mistaken, I was in Stepanakert and at the command post of the Defense Army; by that time, the breakthrough of the 9th defensive zone had already occurred. This was stated by Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan during a session of the parliamentary commission investigating the circumstances of the 44-day war.

“The military-political leadership of Nagorno-Karabakh was also there. I said that the situation has worsened, what proposals are there that can be made. Understanding the seriousness of the situation, I went there, rather than trying to connect by phone from here. The Secretary of the Security Council of Nagorno-Karabakh, who is known to have also been the commander of the Defense Army, Samvel Babayan, proposed that we need to restore the front of the 9th defensive zone. There has been much speculation that Pashinyan said that Serzh Sargsyan lost Lele Tepe, and we need to take it back; there was absolutely no topic like this, it has nothing to do with reality.

For me, the opinion of the Chief of the General Staff of the Armed Forces has been important. Due to objective and subjective circumstances, I have trusted almost unconditionally the people in the position of Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces; the fact that they hold the rank of generals of Armenia is a huge advance of trust for me. This has been a long factor until that trust was completely disrupted, and the disruption was related to specific episodes.

I established contact with Onik Gasparyan from there, he said there is a logic to it and believes that the commander of the Defense Army should formulate a plan and assess the feasibility of that plan. I said very well, inform me whether the response is positive or negative,” Pashinyan said.

He noted that he politically did not prohibit this but that it should be decided by military officials. “I was already in Yerevan, and Onik Gasparyan told me that a decision was made to carry out that operation. Onik Gasparyan set the task for Jalal Harutyunyan in this way: ‘See if your eye is stinging or not,’ after which Harutyunyan said yes. I am aware that a criminal case has been initiated regarding this episode, and an investigation is being conducted, and it is by no means a fact that it was unrealistic and unfounded,” said Nikol Pashinyan.