YEREVAN (Euronews) — In an extraordinary admission, Armenia’s PM Nikol Pashinyan declared that Karabakh was not Armenia’s territory and that the Armenian movement for it was “a fatal mistake,” as Yerevan forges its peace with Azerbaijan and its decisive pro-EU course.
Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stunned Armenian society inside and outside the country with a passionate statement over the weekend, declaring that Karabakh was not Armenian and that Armenia’s “Karabakh movement was a fatal mistake for us.”
In a video widely circulated by the Armenian media on Sunday, May 10, Pashinyan is seen confronting accusations that Armenia “lost” Karabakh by asking repeatedly, “How was that land ours? How was it ours? Please explain how it was ours?”
Countering decades of prior Armenian national narrative regarding Karabakh, the Armenian prime minister said, “I don’t want to speak behind dead people’s backs, but let’s say under the control of a few generals who planted wheat there for instance, let’s say, was that it? How was it ours? How? Explain it, how was it?”
“Did we build a school there, did we build a kindergarten, did we build a factory, did we live there, a settlement… How was it ours? It was not ours. It was not ours,” Pashinyan emphasized.
