168: Those who want gas, wheat, electricity from Aliyev, have you forgotten, like a water pipe in Artsakh?

In the “Pressing” program Satik Seyranyan the guest is Hakob Hakobyan, co-founder and co-chair of the “Ardarutyun” party of the Artsakh Republic is

The main theses of the interview are below.

• Nikol Pashinyan built his entire pre-election campaign on the talk of “peace”, and he made the people of Artsakh an obstacle to that “peace”. A very small number of Artsakh citizens had the right to vote, and their vote would not have a decisive influence on the election results. He was not worried about that, but the fact that he wanted to show Armenians that he will bring peace to Armenia, but the Artsakh issue is an obstacle for that. Unfortunately, most Armenians did not really know what Artsakh represents, and Pashinyan partially succeeded.

• Artsakh residents were first deprived of their passports, forced to obtain Armenian citizenship, and then delayed so much that people could not get citizenship before the elections. Even now, you need a lot of energy and will to get RA citizenship as a citizen of Artsakh:

• Apart from the housing program, none of the programs gave results among the people of Artsakh. Giving money was not the solution. On the ground, we deal with the reality that the majority of Artsakh Armenians are in a difficult social situation today, they do not have a job. Today, the people of Artsakh are either taxi drivers or work in security services. I think it is a great extravagance not to use the potential of the people of Artsakh.

• As of now, as far as I know, Artsakh residents, pensioners and low-income earners receive financial support. But I say again, they cannot help a person who has lost his home, his cradle, just by giving money. The state cannot give enough money for people to meet their vital needs.

• The issue of Artsakh was neither opened nor will it be closed by the statement of one politician or head of state. The people of Artsakh have the dream of returning to Artsakh in their hearts. Another issue is that hearing about the closing of the Artsakh issue from the lips of the head of Armenia adds new wounds to their pain. The issue of Artsakh can be closed only when the people of Artsakh themselves renounce the right to live in their native land. An entire nation cannot be deprived of the right to live in its homeland. These authorities will sooner or later change and holders of the right of return will be able to exercise it:

• There are persons, military figures, who should talk about how the surrender of Artsakh took place, but to say that we lost because the people of Artsakh did not fight is absurd, because first of all, the people of Artsakh did everything they could to protect their homeland, and besides, wars are won or lost by states. 2023 Perhaps no country has seen battles of such intensity as the September 1st war. To win a war, you must have rear security, urban will and organization:

• If a person does not have a hindsight, he cannot think that 120,000 people had to fight to the last person to consider that an Artsakh citizen fought. The states are there to save the nation from Genocide, and in those days Genocide was taking place in Artsakh. Unfortunately, today our houses and cultural monuments in Artsakh are under the influence of Azerbaijani vandalism. They go to war to win, not to die.

• The war is against Armenianness, and every person, entity, who speaks about national pride, is the target of this government. People who are afraid to talk about war will get both shame and war.

• Aliyev understands very well that he forcibly displaced an entire indigenous people from his homeland, and sooner or later he will answer when the rules of the game are decided after the geopolitical situation calms down, and it is his turn to answer. That is why today he presents himself as a humanitarian and tries to “help” the state against which this crime was committed. In Artsakh, when our energy resources – gas, electricity – ended up in the hands of Azerbaijan, we had problems. One day the gas pipeline broke down and the whole of Artsakh was deprived of gas, one day the power lines coming from Armenia broke down and they lasted for weeks and months. 2022 we spent the winter in the cold. The same will happen with Armenia:

• In Artsakh, Azerbaijanis shot water pipe repairmen just because they are Armenians. We know what it’s like to live with an Azerbaijani. This was not spontaneous, it was a political directive. It was absurd to expect such a government to supply us with gas, energy and wheat and to live peacefully with us. No Artsakh citizen thinks for a second that he can put his hope on the benevolence of the Azerbaijanis.

• Artsakh is not inhabited. The Azerbaijani people know what happened in Azerbaijan and will not want to go and live there. The Azerbaijani government also understands what it has done, so it shows that it is allegedly restoring the territories of Artsakh. The military is stationed in Stepanakert, students come and go, but there is no large population. But Azerbaijan publishes such videos that give the impression of a crowd:

• Artsakh’s numerous cultural monuments are not only of Armenians, they belong to all humanity. And the authorities of Armenia should have announced to the whole world that Azerbaijan is encroaching on universal values, but they are not doing it.

• I think it is clear why Hajiyev came to Armenia. Our authorities do not give a proper answer to Azerbaijan’s expansionist ambitions, instead, Azerbaijan puts forward the issue of so-called “enclaves”, “the return of Azerbaijanis”, equating the rights of people who once lived in a certain area with the rights of the indigenous people. Perhaps they were discussing the course of agreed actions with Hajiyev. 

• Aliyev says: do what I demand, and if the Constitution of your country prevents it, change it:

• Yes, demarcation and demarcation should be done, but why start from the areas where you have the strongest defensive positions, and not from where there is an Azerbaijani invasion?

• States may or may not be preparing for war, but our government, for some reason, is not preparing, while Azerbaijan is actively preparing for war, holding military exercises, buying weapons…

• The opposition should not rest on the fact that the CP does not have a constitutional majority. Not by taking or not taking a mandate. The opposition must discuss and present to the people its further actions, with or without mandates:

• Harder and more radical opposition to Arayik Harutyunyan than our party was in Artsakh is hard to imagine, but when we came to Armenia, we stopped our criticism because he cannot answer us because he is a hostage in an enemy state. It is not allowed to pour water into the mill of the Azerbaijani authorities, to pour spoils from Armenia on the heads of the military-political leadership of Artsakh, because Azerbaijan also says: what kind of government are they? They are a group of separatists who robbed their own people.:

• The protection of the state institutions of Artsakh is very important, otherwise there will be different people who will try to present themselves as voices of Artsakh citizens for different purposes. The people of Artsakh should understand this well. 

• Dissenting voices are a great asset that should not be wasted. Opposition parties in the parliament must cooperate with extra-parliamentary forces.

Details in the video.

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