When Serzh Sargsyan was President of Armenia, he was ready to cede almost half of the territory of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan. This is what acting Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan said in response to MP Tigran Urikhanyan’s question during today’s question-and-answer session with government officials.

Pashinyan particularly recalled Sargsyan’s interview that he gave to Rossia Sevodnya agency in November 2016.

“In that interview, Sargsyan declared that his administration was ready to transfer 7 regions to Azerbaijan, but Azerbaijan was demanding more. Sargsyan said Azerbaijan would set forth more demands every time. Moreover, Serzh Sargsyan was offering Azerbaijan more and even half of Nagorno-Karabakh, but Azerbaijan declined,” Pashinyan stated.

Pashinyan also recalled that in parliament he had asked whether Sargsyan viewed the Azerbaijanis living there as the population of Nagorno-Karabakh and added that the members of the Republican Party of Armenia had told him that, in the case of a referendum, the population equivalent to the population of Nagorno-Karabakh during the Soviet era had to participate in the referendum. He went on to say that this meant that 40,000 Azerbaijanis would participate in the referendum.

Pashinyan added that, in his opinion, in spite of all the documents on the negotiations that were on Serzh Sargsyan’s desk, Baku didn’t agree with anything. The acting Prime Minister said he views the logic of the negotiations as Sargsyan’s agreement to cede half of Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.