Armenia's prime minister is to blame for our defeat in Karabakh war – Robert Kocharyan

Second President Robert Kocharyan blamed Armenia’s incumbent prime minister for the defeat in the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) war, highlighting his responsibility “for absolutely everything” that happened in the period of the 44-day fighting.

In an interview with Vladimir Pozner on Channel One Russia, he also criticized the current authorities’ for leading the entire peace processes to a stalamate. “We have been in a conflict with Azerbaijan for many years now. This conflict erupted back in [19]88 … There was a negotiation process which presupposed a certain solution. And the[se] authorities led the negotiation process into a deadlock which, by the way, was created upon the Armenian side’s initiative. Once negotiations finish, a war eupts. The understanding that we have entered into a very dangerous zone of a possible armed conflict resumption was simply obvious,” he noted.

Kocharyan said he saw real chances of an exchange of Armenian-controlled regions for the status of Karabakh (Artsakh) as a result of negotiations. “There is the territory of autonomous region and the territory which we call liberated and the mediators – ‘captured’ - as a result of the [19]92-[19]94 war. It was, in principle, incorporated into the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, yet the Constitution implied certain possibilities. That territory implied a buffer zone so to speak; it was a real security zone. And it was supposed to be a subject of real negotiations on the status of Nagorno-Karabakh,” the former president added.

Commenting on the failures that led the process to a stalemate, Kocharyan said he thinks that the Armenian authorities’ statements and demands ruling out negotiations “without the representatives of Karabakh” and declaring that “Artsakh is Armenia, and that’s it” contributed to that situation.