Shushi has always been an issue because Azerbaijan has never renounced the idea that the Azerbaijanis need to return and reside in Nagorno-Karabakh, and where were they going to reside? This is what Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said during his meeting with members of the Armenian community of Lithuania during an official visit to the country.

“The Armenian side didn’t dispute this. Moreover, when the option for a referendum or inquiry or plebiscite was being negotiated, the Armenian side acknowledged that the Azerbaijanis of Nagorno-Karabakh need to participate as residents of Nagorno-Karabakh. Where were the Azerbaijani residents of Nagorno-Karabakh going to live? They were logically going to live where they used to live. There are so many talks about Shushi [in Armenia]. How many buildings were built in Shushi throughout the past 30 years? None. Why weren’t they built? The answer is clear — they [the opposition] were uncertain about the future of Shushi.

Touching upon the issue of the Goris-Kapan motorway, the premier said the following: “Representatives of the elder generation of Syunik Province know that the motorway was closed when the conflict began in the 1990s. There have always been conflicts in the section of the Eyvazli and Chayzam villages, which were villages of Soviet Azerbaijan. In general, the biggest problem of the past thirty years is that we Armenians haven’t confronted the reality and have never asked what the international community has to say about our arguments.”

According to Pashinyan, many people, including international observers ask how was it that the government won the elections again after the war. “Thank God, nobody outside of Armenia suspects the legitimacy of the elections, and those who suspect the legitimacy, they…the people don’t suspect it either. The reason why the government won is simple. It’s because we were sincere with the people, they listened to us and compared what they heard with what they have seen in the past,” he said.