YEREVAN. – Armen Ashotyan, vice-chairman of the former ruling Republican Party of Armenia (RPA), has wished success to Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in the Nagorno-Karabakh (Artsakh) peace talks.

Speaking with reporters Thursday, Ashotyan said Pashinyan’s remarks at the recent joint meeting of the National Security Councils of Armenia and the Republic of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh Republic/NKR) attest to his attempts to fix the mistakes he made earlier. 

“In fact, the Vienna, Saint Petersburg, Geneva arrangements have virtually been dropped out of the agenda,” the RPA official stressed, in particular. “Those arrangements were the Azerbaijani diplomacy’s failure due to the April [2016] aggression [against Artsakh]. (…). Everyone should manifest solidarity in the Karabakh issue.”

The politician noted, however, that he does not only criticize the incumbent Armenian authorities, but also always offers an alternative.

“I wish Pashinyan success in the Karabakh issue,’ Ashotyan added. “I’m not going to be spiteful in case of failure because we will all pay [for the failure] together.”

And when asked about Pashinyan’s readiness to speak with the former Armenian presidents with respect to the Karabakh peace talks,  Armen Ashotyan said this bespeaks the fact that the Armenian PM has finally realized that it is better to ask the ex-presidents, rather than getting respective information from the Azerbaijani president.

“This is the matter when personal affection and antipathy [toward a person] should be put aside,” he added, above all.