At a press conference, Armenia’s second president Robert Kocharyan responded to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s renewed invitation to a public debate with the country’s former presidents, saying: “Debating with Pashinyan is toxic.”
“There was an issue, Artsakh, around which the challenge for a debate was initially made. Now everyone has forgotten that context, and the word ‘debate’ has started to live its own life,” Kocharyan said, as reported by Factor.am . He compared the current use of the term debate to the word peace, which is often used without consideration of its underlying risks.
“The debate was supposed to be about Artsakh. What reasonable person would sit down to discuss that topic without serious preparation? Let’s debate whether the Earth is round or not? I’m not ready for that,” he added.
Shortly after Kocharyan’s remarks, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan again referred to his open invitation in a Facebook post, writing: “You three, just say, are you coming to the debate or not?”
Since December of last year, Pashinyan has repeatedly invited Armenia’s former presidents to a public debate on the Artsakh negotiation process. All three have so far declined.
