“I disagree with what he presented as facts, because those were not true,” Deputy Parliament Speaker Ruben Rubinian said during a press briefing on Tuesday.
In a film broadcast on Azerbaijani television last week on the occasion of what Baku celebrated as the fifth anniversary of victory in the 2020 war, Bayramov accused Armenia of derailing the peace process by proposing that Baku negotiate directly with the de facto authorities in Nagorno-Karabakh instead of with Yerevan.
He also cited what he described as other “provocative” actions that led to the outbreak of hostilities, including former Defense Minister Davit Tonoyan’s “new war – new territories” statement, Prime Minister Pashinian’s declaration that “Artsakh [Nagorno-Karabakh] is Armenia, period,” and the public awarding of soldiers after the July 2020 clashes at the Armenian-Azerbaijani border.
“Immediately after those clashes, Pashinian demonstratively decorated servicemen who had taken part in those provocations, including those involved in the killing of General Polad Hashimov,” Bayramov said.
Armenia’s former presidents Serzh Sarkisian and Robert Kocharian also recently claimed in separate interviews that Pashinian’s refusal to continue negotiations was among the causes of the 44-day war. Both said the prime minister’s “short-sighted actions” provoked fighting that killed more than 7,000 soldiers on both sides and ended in Armenia’s defeat.
Referring to those statements, Rubinian stressed that he was responding not only to Bayramov but also to Armenia’s former presidents, including Levon Ter-Petrosian, who had earlier also publicly criticized Pashinian and blamed him for the loss of Nagorno-Karabakh, calling him a “nation-destroying scourge.”
“The foreign minister of Azerbaijan, Robert Kocharian, Serzh Sarkisian, and Levon Ter-Petrosian are wrong. Armenia did not provoke the war, Armenia did not start the war, Armenia did not halt the negotiation process. I disagree with Bayramov, Kocharian, Sarkisian, and Ter-Petrosian,” Rubinian said.
Commenting on Pashinian’s 2019 remark that “Artsakh is Armenia, period,” which Baku described as provocative, Rubinian recalled that former President Kocharian had made a similar statement years earlier.
“Robert Kocharian once said that Artsakh, Karabakh, has been part of Armenia since 1988. According to his and his colleagues’ logic, did he then provoke a war?” Rubinian wondered.
Neither Prime Minister Pashinian nor Armenia’s Foreign Ministry has so far officially responded to Bayramov’s accusations regarding the negotiation process.