Sargsyan Admits He Was Offered $ 5 Billion for Return of Seven Districts

Baku/16.02.21/Turan:  Aliyev twice offered money for the return of seven regions around Karabakh. Ex-President of Armenia Serzh Sargsyan said this in an interview with armnews, answering the question whether it is true that Azerbaijan, through the President of Belarus, made an offer to return seven regions for $ 5 billion.

“I must say that this was not the first conversation. I had such a conversation with Aliyev before, ”Sargsyan said.

In response to a clarifying question, Aliyev offered him this money personally, Sargsyan noted: “No, this was not the case, it was just said.” He did not rule out that Pashinyan accepted this offer. “At least it became known that Aliyev and Pashinyan had secret negotiations. It is known who conducted these negotiations, it is known that the one who provided operational communication from the Armenian side passed the letter to Pashinyan. "

Sargsyan used this first interview after his resignation in 2018 to justify his own actions. When asked why during his rule a law on administrative-territorial division was adopted, according to which the border with Azerbaijan is now being laid, he said: “At that time we could not write and formalize the independent existence of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic with our laws. We could not write that the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic is Armenia's neighbor ”.

Why did they write that this is the state border between Armenia and Azerbaijan? To this he noted: "We could not write otherwise, because it would mean partial recognition of the Nagorno-Karabakh Republic, and recognition meant the termination of the negotiation process."

He further accused Pashinyan of refusing to recognize Nagorno-Karabakh during the Second Karabakh War. When asked why he did not do it himself, Sargsyan said that during the April war he was ready, but the war quickly ended.

He further accused Pashinyan and the leader of the Karabakh separatists of disrupting his and other ex-President Kocharian's trip to Moscow. According to Sargsyan, Russian Foreign Minister Lavrov was to receive them.

Sargsyan also criticized Pashinyan's famous statement that Karabakh is Armenia, period. In his opinion, Pashinyan wanted to earn cheap authority and that the Karabakh people would choose his man - Arayik Harutyunyan as their leader.

When asked why Pashinyan tried to include Karabakh in the negotiation process, Sargsyan said that these statements were aimed at gaining time. However, in response, Azerbaijan raised the issue of involving the Azerbaijani community of Nagorno-Karabakh in the negotiations. -02D-