Pashinian claimed on Monday that all peace plans drafted by international mediators from 1994 onwards and considered by his predecessors were about “returning Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.” He said that his “big mistake” was not to make this clear to Armenians after coming to power in 2018.
The offices of Ter-Petrosian and two other former presidents, Robert Kocharian and Serzh Sarkisian, unanimously countered that Pashinian continues to distort the history of the Armenian-Azerbaijani negotiation process that was decades been mediated by the United States, Russia and France. They said he keeps trying to absolve himself of blame for the 2020 war in Karabakh and Azerbaijan’s subsequent takeover of the Armenian-populated region.
Pashinian responded by challenging the three ex-presidents to a televised debate on the issue. They all scoffed at the proposal.
“What should I debate with you when the subject of the debate, the millennia-old Armenian Artsakh, no longer exists due to your adventurism and you have no choice but to make desperate efforts to divert our people’s attention from this bitter reality?” Ter-Petrosian told Pashinian in a statement publicized late on Wednesday.
“Make as much noise as you want. This reality is already a historical fact that can no longer be erased,” he said.
Armenia - Prime Minister Nikol Pashinian and former Presidents Serzh Sarkisian, Robert Kocharian and Levon Ter-Petrosian.
Ter-Petrosian also challenged Pashinian to publicize all peace plans drafted by the U.S., Russian and French co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group along with Yerevan’s official responses to them.
“That would be a real debate based on facts. And if you don't do that, you will prove once again that you are running away from the truth and are busy cowardly dodging historical responsibility,” added the 79-year-old ex-president who led Armenia to independence in 1991.
Neither Pashinian nor his press office responded to Ter-Petrosian as of Thursday evening. The premier is also facing similar calls from some opposition and public figures.
Most of the Karabakh peace proposals were based on so-called Madrid Principles which the U.S., Russian and French mediators originally put forward 2007. This framework agreement, repeatedly modified in the following decade, upheld the Karabakh Armenians’ right to self-determination while calling for their withdrawal from Azerbaijani districts around Karabakh occupied in the early 1990s. Karabakh’s internationally recognized status would be determined through a future referendum.
“Nikol is lying when he says that Armenian diplomacy had spoken about incorporating Nagorno-Karabakh into Azerbaijan,” said Levon Zurabian, the deputy chairman of Ter-Petrosian’s Armenian National Congress party. “On the contrary, Armenian diplomacy had spoken only about not incorporating Nagorno-Karabakh into Azerbaijan.”
“If what Nikol Pashinian says were true, the conflict would have already been ended in 1992,” Zurabian told RFE/RL’s Armenian Service on Thursday.
Armenia - Former Foreign Minister Vartan Oskanian, February 25, 2017.
Vartan Oskanian, who served as Armenia’s foreign minister in the Kocharian administration from 1998-2008, likewise accused Pashinian of lying about the U.S.-Russian-French peace plans.
“I can show our people that he lies, he deceives them and that he does all this to atone for his sins and justify his mistakes,” Oskanian said on Tuesday night.
He challenged Pashinian to debate with him in place of the ex-presidents. The premier did not respond to the proposal.
Armenian opposition leaders say that Pashinian made the 2020 war inevitable by rejecting the last version of the Madrid Principles drafted in 2019. In 2021, Serzh Sarkisian publicized the secretly recorded audio of a 2019 meeting during which Pashinian said he is ready to “play the fool or look a bit insane” in order to avoid such a settlement.
The opposition also holds him responsible for Armenia’s defeat in the six-week war and Azerbaijan’s recapture of Karabakh in September 2023. Pashinian has put the blame on ex-Presidents Sarkisian and Kocharian.