Armenian politician decries Pashinyan’s Karabakh policy

By Azernews

By Abdul Kerimkhanov

Chairman of the Armenian National Unity Party Artashes Geghamyan has criticized Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan’s policies over the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict with Azerbaijan.  

"I should mark the foreign policy situation in the context of our negotiating position on the Karabakh conflict settlement as a setback and a complete transfer of the initiative into the hands of Azerbaijan. There is also the failure of all the agreements that were reached after the 2016 April war," Geghamyan said in an interview with Armenian media recently.

He also said that Ilham Aliyev’s recent critical speeches made in international forums and summits, testifies to the fact that Armenia is not well-accepted by such institutions.

"And what is Prime Minister Pashinyan doing? He organizes a rally in Karabakh, during which he declares that ‘Karabakh is Armenia’ thereby nullifying the very existence of the OSCE Minsk Group. Having spent more than $350,000 of budget money, he flies with a voyage overseas to the U.S. and again organizes a rally with fiery speeches. Moreover, of the 46 invited congressmen, the invitation, in fact, accepts only one," Geghamyan stated.

The MP believes that Armenia lacks prospects in key foreign policy issues, noting that Yerevan is faced with the danger of being completely isolated.

"All these possible threats to national security are in no way reflected in concrete practical actions implemented by Pashinyan and the Foreign Ministry... When unprofessional people are at the helm of the government, in conditions when Armenia and Karabakh are in a state of ‘neither war nor peace’, this can be fatal for both of them," he said.

Geghamyan also criticized Pashinyan for abuse of power.

He recalled PM’s statement made at a government meeting on December 12 that everything positive that takes place in Armenia is being done contrary to the state apparatus, moreover, the fight against corruption causes torpedoing by law enforcement agencies. Explaining impossibility of the state apparatus to fulfill Pashinyan’s instructions, Geghamyan said that they are far from concrete and are unprofessional.