On February 14, the presentation of the book “44: Defeat” took place in Yerevan, during which one of the authors, Karen Harutyunyan, said:

“Two components of the war should be distinguished: military and political. This war was, first and foremost, a political defeat. Our book provides a detailed analysis of the military aspect, but first of all, we are dealing with a diplomatic, political failure. It gained momentum after 2018, with the government’s populism, incompetence, and inability to correctly assess reality.”

Last week, Nikol Pashinyan attended the annual Munich Security Conference. Before leaving for Germany, he once again voiced direct and indirect accusations from the National Assembly against Armenia’s former presidents for failing the settlement process or leading it to a deadlock.

Five years ago, within the framework of the Munich Conference, the Armenian premier’s inglorious debate with the Azerbaijani president took place, which Pashinyan called a “turning point.”



Following the debate, Pashinyan not only published the “Munich Principles” he had compiled, but also claimed that they provide “new content” to the settlement process.

Pashinyan said that after May 2018, Azerbaijan attempted to convince the international community that Armenia had a destructive position, and that the Munich discussion proved that it was Azerbaijan that was acting destructively - “at times bordering on racism.”

Commenting on one of the “Munich Principles” – “There is no issue of territories, there is an issue of security” - the Armenian Prime Minister said that the Artsakh self-defense forces took control of those territories “not for pleasure, but because they had no other option.”

He added that the goal was to push back Azerbaijan’s aggressive actions from the borders of Artsakh as much as possible, and “if Azerbaijan or the international community can offer equally effective tools to ensure security, the Armenian people are ready to discuss it.”

Let me remind you of a few more of Nikol Pashinyan’s “Munich Principles”:

“Nagorno-Karabakh gained independence just like Azerbaijan did.”

“Nagorno-Karabakh is a party to the conflict and to the negotiations, it is not possible to solve the conflict without negotiation with Karabakh.”

“There is no military solution to Nagorno Karabakh issue. If anyone says there is a military solution, the Karabakh people would say that issue has been solved long ago.”

Seven months after “breakthrough” discussion in Munich, Aliyev launched a war.

Five years after proclaiming the “Munich Principles,” Pashinyan is advancing the concept of “Real Armenia.” The same Pashinyan who told Aliyev in Munich five years ago:

“I would ask President Aliyev not to go that far into history because when Armenian King Tigran the Great was negotiating with Pompey, the Roman general, there was no such country in the South Caucasus and in the world in general named Azerbaijan.”

Ara Tadevosyan is the director of Mediamax.