As the June 7 elections in Armenia approach, mutual accusations among political forces are heating up. The parties are trying to discredit each other.
Samvel Karapetyan, a businessman and leader of the opposition "Strong Armenia" bloc, who is a candidate for prime minister, accused Nikol Pashinyan of the defeat in the 44-day war.
He stated that in the initial stage of the 44-day war, there was an opportunity to stop military operations under conditions that would have made it possible to avoid the heavy territorial losses that occurred later.
Modern.az reports that Karapetyan said this in an interview with "168 jham" publication.
According to Karapetyan, if Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan had listened to his proposals, the war could have ended much sooner.
"If he had listened to me, we would have lost only three regions, and the war would have stopped in Fuzuli. But he arrogantly thought that we were winning. If we are winning, why stop? If he had listened to me, we would never have lost Shusha," Karapetyan said.
The opposition leader noted that he does not intend to disclose all the details of that period, but he believes that the country's leadership did not correctly assess the situation at the beginning of the war. Karapetyan does not rule out that perhaps the prime minister was deceived and convinced of victory at that time.
"But then everything went in the wrong direction," he emphasized.
Earlier, Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated at a meeting of the commission for the investigation of the 44-day war in 2023 that the loss of Shusha was one of the main reasons for the signing of the statement of November 10, 2020.
He also recalled that on October 20, 2020, Russian President Vladimir Putin, after talks with Ilham Aliyev, informed Pashinyan that Azerbaijan was ready to stop the war, but expected the handover of all remaining regions. In addition, the return of Azerbaijani IDPs to Shusha and the deployment of Russian peacekeepers in Meghri (to ensure the Azerbaijan-Nakhchivan corridor) were put forward as conditions. However, Pashinyan did not agree with these proposals.
From October 26, attempts at a ceasefire mediated by the United States also yielded no results. Azerbaijan continued its offensive, and the target was Shusha.
As a result, negotiations on the trilateral statement began on November 6, 2020, and the document was signed on November 10.
