They are constantly trying to scare us, so that we don't suddenly get angry, because this will happen, that will happen. One of the topics they are scaring us with is the topic of the “return” of 300,000 Azerbaijanis. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday stated this during the ruling Civil Contract party’s parliamentary election campaign in Kotayk Province.

"They are spending millions. Yesterday I went home after the campaign, I said, 'Let me have some tea,' I turned on YouTube to watch something. And then I saw some video, some woman goes with two children, enters a kindergarten, says, ‘I brought the children to the kindergarten.’ And the director says, 'You know what, we have enrolled [Armenian murderer Azerbaijani army officer Ramil] Safarov's children, we can't enroll your children.' Let's say a person must be crazy, only a crazy person could make a video like that, and then spend millions to get it on the air. What is this topic? What are these 300,000 Azerbaijanis? I am officially telling you: we have closed that topic irrevocably in 2024. But do you know what we closed it with? By making very difficult and heavy decisions, we have closed the topic of 500,000 Armenians returning to Azerbaijan.

We understood that if we say 500,000 [Armenians] return [to Azerbaijan], they [i.e. Azerbaijan] will say 300,000 [Azerbaijanis] return [to Armenian], and this topic must be closed. But in order to close the topic of 300,000 Azerbaijanis irrevocably, we must also close the topic of 500,000 Armenians returning, because if you open one, the other opens. If you close one, the other is also closed,” Pashinyan said.

He added that they proposed a strategic deal in 2024, and guided by the logic of that deal, they closed the topic irrevocably.

“Why is the three-headed party of war spending millions to open that topic? Because when it seems that they are doing this topic to protect Armenia, in reality they are doing it to make Armenia vulnerable, because the return of refugees to the topic, both by us and by Azerbaijan, means the return of the conflict.

Attempts to open that topic must be stopped on the spot, and therefore the force that is now pushing that topic forward, spending millions of dollars, is thereby advertising the topic of the return of Azerbaijanis [to Armenia]; that force is making that topic an agenda. We say: we have removed that issue from the agenda, and will not allow that issue to be returned to the agenda,” the Armenian premier said.