The people of Armenia have given a “green light” to the peace process. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this during the question-and-answer session with the government, in the National Assembly of Armenia Wednesday.

Responding to MP Tsovinar Vardanyan’s request to explain what he meant earlier this morning when speaking about taking Armenia out of the “trap,” the prime minister noted that after analyzing the package of documents on the Karabakh peace talks, it becomes clear that the entire process was never, at any moment, about resolving the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict. The goal was to keep Armenia, and to some extent Azerbaijan, in a ‘trap.’ According to Pashinyan, the aim was never to resolve the Karabakh issue, but to prevent Armenia from becoming an independent republic. An entire generation’s life is at risk, and we cannot move forward without acknowledging that, Pashinyan believes

“When I say that we [i.e. Armenia] have come out of the geopolitical ‘trap,’ I’ve talked about that, too. Please read the published package. It shows how Armenia—and not only Armenia, but in a wider content, the region—was being prevented from becoming a sovereign, prosperous region. When I say it has come out from the geopolitical ‘trap,’ I mean the established peace. And the ‘concerns’ or the heated ‘wording that sounds from a patriotic perspective’ you hear are completely about something else: they are about returning Armenia to the ‘trap,’ nothing else. Today we are a state more than ever, sovereign more than ever, independent more than ever. Armenia today is living the most promising and hopeful period in its last 500-year history. In the previous period, we never had a period where we had this much weight of confidence in the future,” Pashinyan emphasized.

When the aforesaid lawmaker wanted to clarify whether this was the objective of Pashinyan’s political team, he confirmed it, adding that he notes although he does not know whether it was a good thing or not, it was not a planned strategy. “We acted somewhat intuitively, although intuition should not be underestimated,” the premier continued.

He noted that initially he said the “government,” then the “political majority,” although in reality he was speaking about the people. According to him, otherwise, how could the ruling force have stayed in power? Pashinyan believes the Armenian people was guided by intuition, sensing that what was happening resonated with their inner pulse. In other words, the current situation is the combined result of the people and the political majority, and the people are co-authors by giving a green light to the authorities’ work at a time when it seemed impossible, Pashinyan stated.

“Only the inner pulse of the people allowed moving along this path, no matter how difficult it was. Today we can say that the correctness of this path has been proven,” the Armenian PM added, noting that as he has repeatedly said that the Nagorno-Karabakh issue was resolved in 1996, and it's just that no one told us about it.