He came under a barrage of criticism from opposition lawmakers during the Armenian government’s question-and-answer session in the National Assembly. They pointed to Azerbaijani President Ilham Aliyev’s latest statements which Pashinian construed on January 13 as territorial claims to Armenia and a “very serious blow to the peace process.”
“You keep speaking about giving away while Aliyev speaks about taking,” Agnesa Khamoyan, a parliament deputy from the main opposition Hayastan alliance, told Pashinian. “You speak about handing over so-called enclaves, roads, Azerbaijani criminals, and look at what Aliyev says in response to that. So I wonder … where that process of concessions will end.”
“I hope that the purpose of the statements coming from Baku is not to deliberately bring the peace process to a deadlock,” replied Pashinian. He admitted, though, that Armenia and Azerbaijan are now “talking different diplomatic languages.”
Another Hayastan deputy, Artur Khachatrian, pointed out that Baku did not recognize Armenia’s borders even after securing Pashinian’s recognition of Azerbaijani sovereignty over Nagorno-Karabakh and recapturing the region as a result of last September’s military offensive. Khachatrian singled out its renewed demands for an extraterritorial corridor connecting Azerbaijan to its Nakhichevan exclave through a strategic Armenian region.
Pashinian reaffirmed Yerevan’s rejection of those demands. He also said that his administration will first and foremost counter the security threats emanating from Azerbaijani with “international legitimacy relating to Armenia’s borders, territorial integrity and sovereignty.”
Tensions on the parliament floor rose after Levon Kocharian, a son of Hayastan’s top leader and former Armenian President Robert Kocharian, decried Pashinian’s “pathetic” response to Aliyev.
“Why are you so scared? Don’t you see that false peace is a failed agenda?” Kocharian Jr. asked, sparking angry cries from some of the pro-government lawmakers attending the session.
“I want to remind you that you are not at a school party and must behave properly in the National Assembly,” Pashinian shot back.
Answering a question from another parliamentarian, he said: “If, for example, Azerbaijan moves away from the peace agenda, it does not mean that we should also abandon it.”
Pashinian drew strong condemnation from the Armenian opposition after declaring last May that Armenia recognizes Karabakh as a part of Azerbaijan. Opposition leaders say that this policy change paved the way for Azerbaijan’s September 19-20 military offensive that forced Karabakh’s practically entire population to flee to Armenia. Pashinian’s political allies deny this.