Serzh Sargsyan's response to my speech gave the answer to a fundamental and important question. Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated this Thursday at the National Assembly (NA) of Armenia.

"Yesterday in this hall I presented the chain of events that took place from 1998 to 2018. It is not accidental that [third-President] Serzh Sargsyan reflected on only one episode from that 3-hour discussion, saying that he had never negotiated over the phased settlement of the Karabakh issue and that he had spoken publicly several times about the difference between the phased and the package [settlement], also explained in detail that the package version cannot be implemented in a day or an hour, but should definitely be resolved in phases," said the PM.

According to him, Serzh Sargsyan only responded to that episode because the clarification of this episode solves a fundamental issue, that the change of power in Armenia in 1998 was not for any status of Karabakh, not for saving Karabakh from something, but for seizing power in the country.

Pashinyan pointed to how Sargsyan was to resolve the Karabakh issue when on April 17, 2018 he said from the NA rostrum that the negotiations were stopped, did not inspire optimism, and Azerbaijan's expectations from the negotiation process were unacceptable for us.

"Would he go and accept Azerbaijan's unrealistic demands?" the premier asked.

According to him, Serzh Sargsyan also stated that we should not pin hopes for a long time that Azerbaijan will not try to resolve the Karabakh issue by military means.

"This is the answer to the question as to who is the creator of the war situation. (…). When they say the war could have been prevented, it is a genre called ‘grotesque.’ I say that the war could have been prevented as a result of fulfilling the unrealistic and unacceptable demands mentioned by Serzh Sargsyan," Pashinyan said.

As per the Armenian PM, there would have been no settlement in the negotiations until the issue of Artsakh’s (Nagorno-Karabakh) Shushi city was resolved, and this issue has been on the negotiating table since 1996.