Pashinyan: We are moving toward establishing relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan in order to overcome the status of an outpost

ArmInfo. “We are moving toward establishing relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan in order to overcome our status as an outpost,” Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan said in a speech to parliament that was, in fact, directed against the opposition and unnamed external players supporting it.

According to Pashinyan, when voices from Azerbaijan and Turkey are heard in Armenia, a storm begins here. “But we want peace to be signed. But can it really be that Azerbaijan gets nothing while we get everything?” Pashinyan said, addressing the opposition, which he called a “group of marginals.”

“What does the opposition want? If Armenia does not have normal relations with Azerbaijan, Turkey, Georgia and Iran, Armenia will be an outpost. The opposition wants it to be exactly that way. For this, it needs there to be no peace; they need to protect their money because their money is under lock and key,” Pashinyan said, throwing a stone in the direction of an unnamed country. “They are told that if you (the opposition – Ed.) do not return Armenia to its status as an outpost, you will turn into homeless people. And now they are turning into homeless people and trying to protect themselves from this process,” the prime minister said.

Pashinyan accused the opposition of “shouting about Azerbaijan and failing to notice that for more than a year now trains have been entering the country through Azerbaijan. What do you suggest—closing the road? We are moving toward establishing relations with Turkey and Azerbaijan in order to overcome our status as an outpost. And what we are doing is no secret; everything is open and public. Peace cannot be achieved amid a conflict with Azerbaijan. Those who want this are against Armenia’s statehood. Because the state does not allow them to plunder. And they need an outpost so that, through their former generals, former leaders and oligarchs, they can continue plundering Armenia,” Pashinyan said.

According to him, all the countries of the region will benefit from peace, and in this way "we will bring the region out of its conflict deadlock".