Russian expert voices Pashinyan`s motives for turning to second  Karabakh war history 

ArmInfo.Russian political scientist Sergei Markedonov voiced the motives of the Prime Minister  of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan for turning to the history of the second Karabakh war.

The expert announced that the Prime Minister of Armenia is once again  bringing the topic of the results of the second Karabakh war to the  public spotlight.

"A politician is not a historian. It is unlikely that Pashinyan is  professionally engaged with the problems of source studies. Does he  have a different motivation? What is it? Is it accidental that his  "June theses" appeared here and now? And will there be political  consequences from their pronunciation," the political scientist  asked.

In this vein, he stated that it cannot be said that on June 20, 2023,  Nikol Pashinyan discovered something fundamentally new in the  empiricism of the second Karabakh war (and the process of peaceful  settlement of the Armenian-Azerbaijani conflict as a whole).

"Russian President Vladimir Putin has repeatedly spoken about Russian  mediation, options for a ceasefire, while his viewing angle was much  larger. Robert Kocharyan's readiness for Baku's concessions and the  responsibility of the second president of Armenia for withdrawing the  unrecognized NKR from the peace process, his opponents have been  talking for years since 1999. There is no particular novelty in  Pashinyan's words today. The question arises: what is the point of  reopening these wounds now?", Markedonov continued.

According to the political scientist, Armenia faces the most  difficult challenges and prospects for making decisions in the  spectrum between unpleasant and terrible. Markedonov added that a  return to the status quo 1994-2020 is impossible, even the ardent  opponents of the prime minister understand this.

"There are no military resources and a critical mass of public  support. External players are also not eager to implement the  maximalist plans of Yerevan of the past years. Hence the  inevitability of unpopular decisions and the desire to find  consistent narratives that the Armenian society and politicians could  accept, even if in the bitter pills format. Hence the active  promotion of theses about the inevitability of concessions and  defeats," the Russian expert is convinced.

At the same time, Markedonov wonders if Pashinyan is engaged in  political presentism, shifting responsibility to his predecessors,  Russia?  "Yes, of course, he is a politician, not a scientist. He  wants to maintain his power in these specific conditions. It is hard  to deny that he is also guilty of creating them. But for the sake of  objectivity, we must admit other" fathers of defeat ". There is  always a problem with this, because usually "defeat is an orphan",  and "triumph has many parents"!

In conclusion, the political scientist expressed his conviction that  the Armenian society and the political class as a whole will have to  discuss complex systemic things more than once beyond the conflict  between Nikol Vovayevich and Robert Sedrakovich.

"With the understanding that it is not only a personal factor, dreams  and wishes determine the political agenda. And this conversation,  obviously, is not for one month or even one year," Markedonov summed  up.

It should be noted that RA Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan today gave  public testimony to the parliamentary Inquiry Committee for Studying  the Circumstances of the Hostilities Unleashed on September 27, 2020  (44-day war), . The parliamentary opposition stated that it did not  intend to participate in this "show". In his speech, the Prime  Minister of Armenia directly or indirectly tried to shift the  responsibility for the current situation to the previous authorities  in the person of the second President Robert Kocharyan, during whose  governance Artsakh was removed from the negotiating table. Moreover,  he repeated the already repeatedly voiced thesis, allegedly that it  was Robert Kocharyan who tried to surrender Meghri to Azerbaijan.  Accusations were also made against Armenia's ally, Russia, in the  context of the signing of a tripartite statement on a ceasefire in  the zone of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict.  However, on none of the  voiced accusations, the Armenian prime minister presented convincing  evidence, everything was limited by his perception of the issue.