This statement does not contain any guarantees, there are no guarantors. My proposal was as follows: to supplement it with another agreement which would include the entire guarantee complex, and both documents would be signed simultaneously. Armenia’s second president, Robert Kocharyan, told this during a press conference Thursday, as he addressed the question of whether he would sign the peace agreement with Azerbaijan in the form it is now if he comes to power again in Armenia.

“You cannot call ‘peace’ the peace that depends on the mood of one person: [Azerbaijan president] Ilham Aliyev. And in this chaotic world, relying on the mood of one person is absurd and irresponsible. Then they will say, ‘Wow, what happened? He deceived? What should I do?’ This is what will happen,” Kocharyan added.

Regarding Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s statement that Armenia’s CSTO membership has hindered the country’s purchase of weapons from other sources, Kocharyan said: “We [i.e. Armenia] have never had a problem buying weapons from other places, and there have been such purchases. It’s just that we had such discounts in terms of price with Russia that a person would have to be a fool to go, buy the same weapon from another place that costs twice as much, and along with that, questions would arise about what you have to do with the maintenance of that weapon, how you should bring the ammunition. Serious problems arose in all issues.”

“If you bought some artillery from France, you think about what price and in what quantity; you also need to bring the ammunition. How will you bring [it] and what will it cost you? At least 4-5 times more expensive. How will you maintain [it]. Are you going to open a service center for five units, or should specialists from there come and look at for every problem? This only brings problems with itself,” Kocharyan added.

“There is such a term as ‘weapons zoo.’ It is quite problematic, that is why many countries have one main partner from large countries, with whose weapons they replenish their army, and it does not create these problems. In NATO, they are standardizing precisely to solve these problems. Now we [i.e. Armenia] have brought something from France, something from India, I do not know where else they will bring. Then how will all this be connected to each other? This is short-sighted, I suppose also that these are processes motivated by kickbacks,” Armenia’s second president concluded.