“Serzh Sargsyan stated in 2018 that the 'Nagorno-Karabakh negotiations' had reached an impasse. He also said that he hoped Azerbaijan would not attempt to resolve the issue by military force”.
Modern.az reports that Ruben Rubinyan, Deputy Speaker from the ruling “Civil Contract” Party of the Armenian Parliament, stated this in a conversation with journalists on December 3.
"Why did the 44-day war start? For two reasons. The first and main reason is that from 1998 onwards, the ratio of military budgets between Armenia and Azerbaijan was practically equal, and by the time Robert Kocharyan's presidency in Armenia ended, this ratio was 1 to 5 in favor of Azerbaijan. During Serzh Sargsyan's presidency, this difference further increased, and we inherited this large budget disparity, which, by the way, we also reduced. At the same time, the family budgets of Kocharyan and Sargsyan increased," Rubinyan noted.
He cited the second reason as the negotiation package initially focusing on the return of 7 districts to Azerbaijan and what to do with "Nagorno-Karabakh".
"As for "Nagorno-Karabakh", it was unclear what would happen. In this case, it is necessary to know what was happening at that moment. And at that moment, everyone recognized "Nagorno-Karabakh" as part of Azerbaijan.
Meanwhile, the terms of the negotiation packages were progressively worsening, and Azerbaijan did not even agree to them, because each successive document was better for it than the previous one.
The only document that at least one of the parties – Armenia – agreed to for the last time was the Kazan document. There was no document that Azerbaijan agreed to but Armenia rejected," Rubinyan emphasized.
According to him, Serzh Sargsyan himself stated that, based on the 2018 document, which formed the basis of the 2019 document, the Armenian side was making real territorial concessions, while Azerbaijan was not.
"He says that the issue of the interim and final status of "Nagorno-Karabakh" remains undefined and adds that Azerbaijan will try to seize control over the remaining territories as a next step. Moreover, this document does not directly state that the Lachin (excluding the Lachin corridor) and Kalbajar districts remained under the control of "Nagorno-Karabakh".
If the opposition calls us traitors, why didn't they accept the proposals themselves in 2016, if those proposals were so good? If these proposals were bad, why does the opposition blame us and ask why we did not accept them?", Rubinyan emphasized.
He believes that in any case there would have been losses, and the war would have started from a worse initial position for the Armenian side.
The Vice-Speaker attributed the absence of a negotiation package related to Key West to the "love triangle of Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan, and Serzh Sargsyan".
He stated that the 2022 Prague Declaration did not change the essence of the statement dated November 9, 2020.
"Furthermore, no changes have been made to the functions of the Russian peacekeepers in "Nagorno-Karabakh"," Rubinyan concluded.
