Armenia ex President accuses PM of lies on Karabakh process

PanARMENIAN.Net - Armenia's third President Serzh Sargsyan has accused Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan of lies and manipulations, as well as of deceiving the public while speaking of the Nagorno-Karabakh negotiation process.

Pashinyan said in parliament Wednesday, April 14 that those who ousted first president Levon Ter-Petrosyan in 1998 for his intention of resolving the Karabakh conflict in stages, reached the same point 20 years later, leaving what Pashinyan described as a "hyper-phased" settlement behind.

"Throughout my entire presidency, I never negotiated over the resolution of the Artsakh issue based on the step by step approach. The person, who currently occupies the prime minister’s chair, either has not understood until now the difference between the step by step and package solutions, or has employed his main tool – manipulation," Sargsyan said Wednesday.

"I spoke publicly several times about the step by step and package options and explained in detail why the package solution cannot be called to life in one hour or one day and must be implemented in stages."

Sargsyan also noted that his position on said topic were confirmed by the Co-Chairs of the OSCE Minsk Group.

Lawmaker from the ruling Civil Contract party Ruben Rubinyan hit back at Sargsyan later in the day: "According to Sargsyan, the package version is the same step-by-step version, which is simply called package, which is implemented in stages, but it is not phased because it is a package one.”