Levon Zurabyan, Vice President of the Armenian National Congress (ANC), responded via Facebook livestream to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s question about why Armenia’s previous three presidents failed to implement their proposed “brilliant solutions” to the Karabakh issue. Zurabyan argued that the problem remained unresolved solely because of the actions of the current government.
He stated that former presidents Robert Kocharyan and Serzh Sargsyan “at least negotiated,” whereas Pashinyan “rejected negotiations” in 2019.
Addressing the prime minister directly, Zurabyan said: “The Karabakh issue was not resolved solely because maximalist Armenian leaders like you rejected the only peace plan that envisioned suspending the status of Nagorno-Karabakh—a plan even Azerbaijan had accepted.
The only difference is, Kocharyan and Sargsyan at least negotiated, while in 2019, you rejected talks altogether, dragging Armenia into a disastrous war. As you yourself admitted, you sacrificed Artsakh and broke Armenia’s backbone because you had a strategy to reconcile with Azerbaijan and engage in dialogue with Turkey. So who really served the interests of foreign states?” he asked.
Earlier, Pashinyan had questioned in a Facebook video why Armenia’s previous three presidents failed to implement the Karabakh solutions they described as excellent, offering two reasons. On October 9, he again criticized the rhetoric of his predecessors.
“All three former leaders of Armenia have adopted a certain narrative: one says ‘We would have resolved Karabakh with the 1994 Budapest document,’ another claims ‘We would have resolved it with the 2001 Key West agreement,’ and the third points to the 2011 Kazan document. Each describes supposedly excellent solutions. Well, why didn’t they solve it?” Pashinyan had said.
