Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan responded to statements by former Armenian presidents Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan, and Serzh Sargsyan, who had accused him of provoking the 44-day war and dragging Armenia into it.
Speaking at a panel discussion during the Armenian Democracy Forum, Pashinyan launched counter-accusations.
“If we dragged Armenia into war, then what was an 18-year-old soldier doing outside Armenia’s internationally recognized borders in 2018? Why didn’t we talk about this? If anyone raised it, they were branded a traitor. The people who dragged Armenia into war from the first day of their political activity—not only did they drag us in, but they fled halfway, went home and sat down, and today they blame us, saying we dragged Armenia into war,” Pashinyan said, as reported by Armenpress.
He further asked rhetorically whether Armenia had not already been at war in 2019, 2018, 2017, 2016, and earlier years.
“So how did it happen that Nikol Pashinyan supposedly dragged Armenia into war?” he concluded.
The prime minister also addressed the former presidents’ statements in a Facebook post.
