Ter-Petrosian also insisted that Pashinian paved the way for the disastrous war with Azerbaijan by rejecting the last peace plan jointly drafted by the United States, Russia and France in 2019.
The 80-year-old, who had led Armenia to independence in 1991, issued a similar statement on Monday, blaming Pashinian for the six-week war and accusing him of “sacrificing” 5,000 Armenian lives. The latter responded with a series of furious social media posts directed at not only Ter-Petrosian but also two other former presidents leading major opposition groups.
Pashinian charged, in particular, that they themselves had “dragged Armenia into war.” And he again challenged them to a televised debate on the issue.
“We can organize the debate in my former cell at the Yerevan-Kentron [prison] so that it is convenient for all of you,” he wrote in what looked like an implicit threat to jail the ex-presidents.
Former President Serzh Sarkisian’s office responded to Pashinian with a famous quote from American writer Mark Twain: “Never argue with stupid people, they will drag you down to their level and then beat you with experience.”
A spokesman for the other ex-president, Robert Kocharian, suggested that Pashinian is acting under the influence of alcohol or drugs.
“Let him publish all the documents about Karabakh that he has in his possession,” Ter-Petrosian said for his part.
“I have said this a hundred times,” he told reporters. “If he publishes them, the dispute will be over. Everything is said there.”
Pashinian said early this year that he is ready to publicize the Karabakh peace plans but that his administration has still not managed to find those documents. He had repeatedly claimed that they all were about “returning Nagorno-Karabakh to Azerbaijan.”
Most of the plans were based on so-called Madrid Principles originally put forward by the U.S., Russian and French mediators in 2007. This draft framework agreement, repeatedly modified in the following decade, upheld the Karabakh Armenians’ right to self-determination while calling for their withdrawal from Azerbaijani districts around Karabakh occupied in the early 1990s. Karabakh’s internationally recognized status would be determined through a future referendum.
The three co-chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group presented the conflicting sides with an updated version of the proposed peace deal in 2019, one year after Pashinian came to power. The premier reluctantly acknowledged this fact in February after repeated denials.
Pashinian also admitted late last month that he rejected that plan. He claimed that its implementation would have led to the “loss of Armenia’s independence and statehood.”
