Kocharyan Does Not Rule Out Likelihood of New War, His Return to Power

Baku/04.03.21/Turan: Ex-President of Armenia Robert Kocharian does not plan to lead the opposition demanding the resignation of Prime Minister Pashinyan. He stated this during a press conference in Yerevan.

According to him, the current leader of the opposition Vazgen Manukyan is a worthy and experienced politician. The task of the movement is to resign the government and hold early elections a year later. However, Manukyan will not participate in these elections. In this sense, there are not many politicians in Armenia who are ready to take on such a serious responsibility, Kocharian said.

Answering the question about the restoration of the combat capability of the Armenian Armed Forces, Kocharian said that this requires 3 billion dollars.

The Armenian authorities do not speak about the scale of losses - material and human, he noted.

"It is necessary to restore the Armenian Armed Forces as the most efficient army in the region," Kocharian said, admitting that it is impossible to do this without Russia's help.

"On November 10, the authorities had to kneel down and ask the people for forgiveness. And if they had the dignity, shoot themselves," Kocharian said. The signed document is set out on one and a half pages. Such questions are not solved in one and a half pages. We will have to work out a lot of documents on individual details, Kocharian remarked vaguely, noting that the Armenian government cannot adequately negotiate on Karabakh.

He went on to blame the authorities for disrupting his trip to Moscow, hinting that he could negotiate with Putin to end the war. According to him, during the war there were no direct contacts with the Russian President, but he had the opportunity to convey to the Russian leadership his views and position on the situation.

He believes that a new war is possible in Karabakh. “An unjust peace in Karabakh will lead to a new war,” he said, urging to intensify the work of the OSCE Minsk Group.

"The Minsk Group is needed now. Russia also needs it. In what direction the negotiation process on the status of Karabakh will go, it is difficult to say. But world experience shows that an unjust peace cannot last long," Kocharian said.

If one of the parties does not agree with the outcome of the war, then "wait for a new war." "It is necessary to find a political solution. And if in Azerbaijan they think that they have solved the Karabakh problem, it will mean the opposite, despite the current situation," Kocharian said.

Answering the question about Sargsyan's fault that Pashinyan came to power, Kocharian refrained from assessments.

"We are always trying to look for the guilty. For me, 2018 was an incomprehensible year. I did not think that our people could be so easily manipulated and that the use of technology can be so effective in Armenian society," Kocharian said.

"There were problems that led to these processes. But here there were also obvious use of technologies, geopolitics and active intervention of external non-Armenian forces," Kocharian said.

Commenting on the demands of the General Staff for the government to resign, Kocharian said that the generals behave "too restrained." The generals do not want their action to be perceived as an attempted military coup. At the same time, one should not be afraid of the phrase "military coup". There are many cases in history when a military coup made it possible to preserve statehood and ensure the development of the economy. -02D-