During the question-and-answer session with the government at the National Assembly of Armenia on Wednesday, opposition MP Kristine Vardanyan played one of PM Nikol Pashinyan's previous recordings where he states as follows at a rally: "There can be no question of compromises in a situation when [Azerbaijani president] Aliyev is brazenly shouting at Armenia and the Armenian people every day with his teeth sharpened. For compromise, there must be a climate of compromise, whereas to talk about compromise in the climate of aggressive behavior by Aliyev means to talk about the capitulation of Armenia and the NKR [i.e. the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic]."

Then Vardanyan noted: "You went one step further than this and said that not only there is no compromise, but you said our goal is not for Azerbaijan to concede anything. That is, in the climate you described, we [i.e. Armenia] are the only side conceding in these negotiations. Tell me, do you accept that this is a capitulation, in your own words?

Also, want you to address the point that was not agreed upon because [Azerbaijani FM] Jeyhun Bayramov was speaking, from the UN rostrum, about the exclusion of revanchism, the so-called ‘return of refugees.’ Does this non-agreed point refer to any of those issues?"

In response, PM Pashinyan first reflected on the note he made on the day of his visit to the Yerablur Military Pantheon in Yerevan. "Yes. What I said there is true. And that is the reason why the compromises did not happen and led to the war [in 2020]. The essence of the matter is that I have stated several times from this podium that the Karabakh issue has been thrown around Armenia's neck in the form of a leash, used by many countries as a rope. And the compromises that have been put on the negotiating table since August 2016 were as follows that Armenia shall not exist, the rope around Armenia's neck shall be stretched and tied somewhere nearby," Pashinyan remarked.

And referring to the claims of the Armenian opposition that Nagorno-Karabakh and Armenia have capitulated, the Armenian PM said: “What kind of capitulation are you talking about? How was election held in a capitulated country, and you got a [parliamentary] mandate, came and sat here, ask questions, get a salary?"