Artak Zakaryan, a member of the Republican Party of Armenia’s Executive Body, responded on Facebook to claims from the ruling party that former leaders avoid public debates.
Addressing Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, who has repeatedly invited Armenia’s three former presidents to debate, Zakaryan wrote: “You’d do well to debate Aliyev, who relentlessly promotes the ‘Zangezur corridor’ narrative.”
He continued: “The man who handed over Artsakh, signed a capitulation on Armenia’s behalf, brought the country to its knees before Turkish interests, caused over 5,000 deaths, left 150,000 people homeless and stateless, saddled the Armenian people with $13 billion in debt, reframed a road into a corridor, and sold nonexistent peace to the people, this same man claims the former presidents are afraid to debate him? Really?
What is there to debate? How to dismantle the Third Republic’s historic victories and national achievements? Or how to amend the Constitution under enemy pressure?
All topics tied to today’s catastrophic situation belong to you alone, so you can freely debate yourself, especially since you’ve already negotiated everything, from your own starting point.
You’d better debate Aliyev and other world leaders who aggressively push the ‘corridor’ agenda before the impeachment process is launched,” Zakaryan concluded.
Pashinyan reiterated his debate offer on October 7, responding to former President Robert Kocharyan’s press conference, during which Kocharyan said debating Pashinyan would be “toxic.” Pashinyan replied: “Just say, three of you, are you coming to the debate or not?”
