Meeting on Wednesday with residents of border villages in the northeastern Tavush province where the process is likely to start, Pashinian explained that the solutions sought by his government are a reaction to global geopolitical changes like the Russo-Ukrainian war that weren’t there the last time he was elected in office in 2021.
“We can hold [early parliamentary] elections next month... A war between Russia and Ukraine began after our last elections. We can hold another election and another war between some other countries will begin, and it will have a specific impact on our situation,” Pashinian told residents of Berkaber.
He said that the task of the government should rather be to adapt the people to the changing situation. At the same time, he said that his government sought in earnest to follow through every pledge made in its election program.
The prime minister emphasized that if his government manages to negotiate a border demarcation with Azerbaijan the way it sees it, it will achieve the goal of ensuring Armenia’s sovereign statehood.
He said that he was putting his political career in the balance so that “Armenia becomes a truly independent state and not an outpost.”
“The next elections will be in 2026. Gone are the days when people were told how to vote. If you decide to change the government, you will. But today, understanding this, knowing that what I am doing is unpopular, I sacrifice myself in the name of the Republic of Armenia,” Pashinian said.
“Armenia is more important to me than my political career. There should not be trenches in front of Berkaber’s houses, but there should be gardens. It should not be a frontline, but a border with a checkpoint. If you want to communicate [with Azerbaijan], you’ll do so, if you don’t, it’s up to you,” Pashinian said.
At the same time, Pashinian gave assurances that if any changes relating to the sovereign territory of Armenia were to be made in the process of border delimitation and demarcation, the issue would have to be put to a referendum, which is a requirement of Armenia’s Constitution.
“Even if we want to, we will not be able to give up our sovereign territory. Because it is written in the Constitution of Armenia that territorial changes in Armenia are possible only through a referendum,” he said.
Pashinian again stressed, however, that the four villages that he seems intent on ceding to Azerbaijan have never officially been part of Armenia.
It was last month that Pashinian signaled his readiness to accept Baku’s demands for Armenian withdrawal from those villages that used to be part of Soviet Azerbaijan, but have been under Armenia’s military control since 1991-1992.
In his public statements he did not make their handover conditional on the liberation of any Armenian territory occupied by Azerbaijani forces in the early 1990s and 2021-2022.
Moreover, meeting with residents of border villages last month he warned that Baku would unleash another war if Yerevan refused to unilaterally and unconditionally hand over those four villages.
The Armenian opposition has strongly criticized Pashinian’s stance on the issue, characterizing it as a unilateral concession.