Pashinyan’s Press Conference Proved Why He Isn’t Qualified to Lead Armenia — By Harut Sassounian
During his latest press conference held on August 31, 2024, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan showed once again why he should resign as soon as possible.
Since neither Pashinyan nor his advisors and appointees know what they are doing, I am obliged to volunteer some advice and suggestions, something I have done for 30 years with all previous and current leaders of Armenia.
While it is commendable that Pashinyan wants to meet with the media and answer questions, his press conferences should not be longer than one hour, to lessen the number of his contradictory statements and to conceal his incompetence. During past press conferences, he had spoken for four or five hours, thus copying the practice of past Soviet and current Russian leaders whose meetings with the media lasted forever. Fortunately, this time, Pashinyan’s press conference lasted only 2 hours and 17 minutes. By answering so many questions, Pashinyan provided more ammunition to his opponents to criticize his answers.
The first issue that I would like to cover is Pashinyan’s reply to a question on whether Armenia should attend the International Environmental UN Conference to be held in Baku in November. In July, when asked if Armenia will participate in the UN Conference (COP29), the Government Information and Public Relations Department promised that Pashinyan will respond to Azerbaijan’s invitation during his press conference in August. However, on August 31, when asked about his decision, he nonchalantly said, he had not made a decision and that he will let everyone know at a later date. If he has a good reason for not deciding now, why did the government promise in July that he will announce the decision in August?
In reply to a question about whether the Armenian government is making any efforts to gain the release of the Armenian prisoners of war and political hostages, Pashinyan as usual blamed everyone else except himself. He forgot that immediately after the 2020 War, he is the one who foolishly released all Azeri prisoners of war in return for some of the Armenian prisoners. He should have freed ALL Azeri prisoners only in exchange for the release of ALL Armenian prisoners. Pashinyan made another major blunder when he agreed to lift Armenia’s veto, allowing Baku to host the highly prestigious international conference in November. Pres. Ilham Aliyev was so desperate to host this conference that he would have agreed to release, not just some, but all of the Armenian prisoners and even vacate the regions of the Republic of Armenia occupied since 2021 and 2022.
Pashinyan next disclosed that Armenia and Azerbaijan have agreed on 13 out of the 17 articles in the draft of the peace agreement. Therefore, Pashinyan suggested that the two countries sign the document on the basis of the agreed 13 points, leaving the remaining four points for the future. However, Pashinyan does not seem to understand that Aliyev has zero interest in seeking peace with Armenia. What he wants is a piece of Armenia, in fact all of Armenia, as he has repeatedly threatened.
First of all, Pashinyan constantly asking for peace will not lead to peace for the simple reason that Azerbaijan is not interested in peace. It takes two to tango. There is no such thing as a one-sided peace.
Secondly, by desperately begging for peace, Pashinyan is simply encouraging Aliyev to demand more and more concessions from Armenia.
Thirdly, the signing of a “peace treaty” will not prevent Aliyev from waging war on Armenia. The “peace treaty” will not guarantee peace. For Aliyev, the “peace treaty” is just a piece of paper.
Pashinyan boasted that the agreement signed by Armenia and Azerbaijan last Friday to demarcate the borders was the first legal document signed between the two countries, even though it has yet to be ratified. He must have forgotten that back in 1994, the governments of Armenia, Azerbaijan and Nagorno Karabagh signed a ceasefire agreement. He also forgot that he himself signed a similar agreement at the end of the 2020 War with Putin and Aliyev.
Perhaps the ugliest part of Pashinyan’s press conference was when he decided to raise unnecessary suspicions about Ruben Vardanyan, the former State Minister of Artsakh, who has been held in a Baku jail as a hostage since Sept. 2023. Instead of focusing on his non-existent efforts to gain the release of the Armenian prisoners of war and hostages, Pashinyan disparaged Vardanyan by saying: “What happened? How come Ruben Vardanyan gave up his Russian citizenship? Who advised him or recommended to him to take that step? Who sent him in that sense to the Republic of Armenia? Who sent him to Nagorno Karabagh? For what purpose, what guarantees, what assurances, what promises?” And who at the end said, ‘you know we do not really know who he is, since he is a citizen of another country?’” Pashinyan then told the reporter who asked the question: “Do you want that we have answers to these questions or not? You yourself mentioned it and I am reacting to it. And I would like to say and confess that it is a real problem, it is a serious problem with which we need to occupy ourselves and we are occupying ourselves with. I don’t want now to talk about other additional complexities and reveal details. But, I also want to say that the successful realization of the peace agenda is for that issue as well for which it is not mandatory to have a successful endpoint….” Rather than helping to free Vardanyan, Pashinyan made his release even more complicated.
Pashinyan made many other errors during his press conference, but one needs to write an entire book to cover them all.
