After the 44-day war [in 2020] and even before that, we were accused of selling, handing over; that is, we did not make efforts to protect the rights of Armenia or Nagorno-Karabakh. Meanwhile, if there is an objective accusation against us, it should be about something else that we did not talk to the people about the impossibility of realizing Armenian ideas and wishes in the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan noted this in an interview with Public Television

"We are accused of something we are not guilty of, we are not accused of something where we are more likely to be found guilty; this also has a reason. They don't accuse because in this case, the accusation will be more blurred by making it the addressee of much larger circles; that is, it will become so that it is much more difficult to address the accusation, to make it personal," he said.

According to Pashinyan, in order for any authorities to say that something like this is impossible, it must be followed by a proposal.

"(…) it is the leader's task to submit a proposal. What are we doing? Are we returning the territories? Are we zeroing the current status of Nagorno-Karabakh? There is no certainty about the future status of Nagorno-Karabakh; moreover, what is accepted in the highest international instances is certain.

"I mean, in fact, if we follow the logic of a wise politician, the record of a wise politician in 2019 should have been that the seven territories [around Nagorno-Karabakh] should be handed over [to Azerbaijan], the current status of Nagorno-Karabakh should be zeroed; why and how, I will say later. A maximum Armenian-Azerbaijani joint governance should be established in Nagorno-Karabakh, and the status of Nagorno-Karabakh will not be determined until Azerbaijanis are the majority in Nagorno-Karabakh," Pashinyan emphasized.

He added that after all this comes the fifth question.

"And what will happen after all this? For example, will the Sev Lake events take place or not? The Sotk-Khoznavar events, the Tegh [village] events will take place or not? Next, in fact, we have to face the need to collapse the 30-year-old Armenian speech, and still not having the answer to the question: did it turned out this way because the Armenian authorities collapsed the Armenian vision? Or on the contrary, should it have happened that way? When I said in the National Assembly that we would have the same thing, but without casualties, I did not understand why there was a fuss because this is what I meant," the Armenian PM emphasized.

Nikol Pashinyan stated that in the negotiation process of settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue, there was never an option that would offer a solution to this issue.

"All the options that were on the table, since the Madrid principles, assumed non-resolution of the Nagorno-Karabakh issue. There was only one option in 1999, which in case of signing it could be said that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue was resolved. It was the exchange option between Meghri and Nagorno-Karabakh; that is, Meghri is handed over to Azerbaijan, Nagorno-Karabakh is joined to Armenia. There was no solution to the Nagorno-Karabakh issue in any other option. It was done specifically so that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue could be kept on Armenia's ‘head’ as a bludgeon. Maybe also on the ‘head’ of Azerbaijan," he said.

"And this, in my understanding, was also done specially in some sense, so that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue could always be kept on the ‘head’ of the Republic of Armenia as a bludgeon. I don't know, maybe some people were thinking about on Azerbaijan’s ‘head.’ But now I am talking about Armenia, and I want to talk about Armenia. I have said before the impossibility of clarifying where the process will stop because if you have a predictable environment or the ability to make the process predictable, you can discuss and make a decision. But if you do not know, or there is absolutely no possibility to make the process predictable, what you say becomes practically impossible," emphasized the Armenian premier.