ArmInfo."The citizens of Armenia did not give you a mandate to recognize Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan. You were given a mandate to defend the right to self- determination, as stated in your party's election program," a citizen told Armenia's Premier Nikol Pashinyan at his meeting with representatives of the Armenian community in Munich.
"You have been in office for 6 years now. At the beginning of your tenure in this post, you stated that you were starting negotiations from your own point, and from that moment you took full responsibility for the process of resolving the Artsakh conflict. 'Artsakh is Armenia, and full stop!" (Pashinyan's statement - ed.), and as a result we have human and territorial losses, a shameful statement of November 9, a defeated prime minister of a defeated country, a lost Motherland: Then the prime minister of the defeated country proclaimed an era of peace and we lost the sovereign territories of Armenia. You recognized Artsakh as part of Azerbaijan, in response - the blocking of the Lachin corridor and the final de-Armenianization of Artsakh and now we face the threat of a new military escalation. Mr. Pashinyan, we recorded all these failures during your reign, I am sure that you will now find many reasons and justifications, as over the past 6 years, but you were not elected for this, but to ensure the security of the country. Do you have the courage to take responsibility and leave politics, since today Armenia is on the 'altar'?" the citizen asked.
Pashinyan recalled that during term of office he had already resigned twice and was appointed prime minister following the results of early parliamentary elections. In this regard, as the prime minister pointed out, he cannot simply refuse the mandate entrusted by the people to the ruling party.
The prime minister stressed that he disagrees with the formulation "lost homeland". According to the head of the Cabinet, the homeland is the territory of the Republic of Armenia, and we must concentrate on the development of this particular territory.
As for the right to self-determination, according to Pashinyan, this concept "on which the entire policy of Armenia was based, starting in 1994 and even earlier, actually had a different meaning." "For a long time we were not aware of very important circumstances. In December 1996, the Lisbon OSCE summit took place, at which the chairman of the summit announced an explanation of the concept of the 'right to self- determination.' His statement indicated that this position is shared by the entire international community, except Armenia, namely that "the Nagorno-Karabakh problem should be resolved on the basis of the implementation of the right of Nagorno-Karabakh to self-determination in the status of high autonomy within the Republic of Azerbaijan. This is our fundamental problem," he said.
According to him, the problem is that "we did not initially encounter this truth and did not inform people about it." "It seemed to us that we could 'break through' the international community and get through and achieve our goal. But that doesn't happen. It seemed to us that we were in conflict with Azerbaijan, but in fact we were against the entire international community, which is unreasonable. And there were forces that encouraged us," Armenia's premier said.