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Armenia’s Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan on Wednesday reflected on the developments in the recent Artsakh war, particularly on October 19 and afterwards.

Addressing lawmakers at the National Assembly, the premier stated there has been much speculation over what happened on October 19 and after that.

“Analyzing the situation and consulting with the president of Artsakh and the chief of the military’s General Staff, I decided that we had to achieve a ceasefire even through certain painful concessions,” the PM said.

He noted that in this regard, he convened a meeting of the Security Council, which was attended by representatives of the parliamentary factions, including the opposition.

“In addition, I said that I invited the representatives of the parliamentary opposition not to share responsibility with them, but simply to inform them; I could not make a public statement on what was happening at the moment, because should the opposing side refuse to accept our proposal, these statements would not have a positive impact on our general situation,” he said, adding the president and the Catholicos also attended the meeting.

“On the same day, I invited representatives of the extra-parliamentary opposition forces and informed them about the ongoing developments, reiterating that I had invited them not to share responsibility with them or to shift responsibility to them, but simply to inform them about the developments,” Pashinyan said.

In the premier’s words, he next called the Russian president and said that Armenia wanted a ceasefire with Azerbaijan on the condition of returning the territories under the 5+2 format.

“You know that there was an issue concerning the return of Azerbaijani refugees, i.e. the internally displaced Azerbaijanis to Nagorno-Karabakh. And I said in principle we had no objections to the issue and would not have any if we somehow linked this issue with the process of determining the status of Nagorno-Karabakh.

“Afterwards, the president of Russia held a phone call with the Azerbaijani president, as a result of which it became clear that the Azerbaijani side categorically rejected our proposal, demand for the de-occupation of the Hadrut region. Secondly, they demanded that the return of internally displaced persons, including to Shushi, not be linked with the clarification of status in any way. Also, they dropped a hint that seven regions had to be returned at once and not under the 5+2 formula. This was said as a hint in case we agreed on the terms put forward before that,” Pashinyan said.