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Armenia’s third President and Chairman of the Republican Party of Armenia (RPA) Serzh Sargsyan delivered remarks at the 17th RPA Congress on Saturday.

“I resigned in 2018 wishing peace, harmony and sense of reason to the country. I left to pacify our people, which had been deceived, manipulated and poisoned with great portions of lies and disinformation by these populists and their foreign sponsors which had clearly geopolitical goals. I left not to allow bloodshed in our country and to give opportunity for the thousands of people in the square to build the country of their dreams and to continue with the same enthusiasm and demand the would-be government to honor every promise they gave and be accountable to the people,” he said.

The former president underlined that he would only be happy if that was the case, and “if peace, harmony and sense of reason ruled in the country”.

“All of this has, unfortunately, been reduced to zero in the past three and a half years,” Sargsyan stated.

In his words, today many people can see the real goals behind the veil of so-called “velvet and people’s revolution”.

“Obviously I was standing in the way of those who proposed a heavy dilemma at the hands of these puppets: either to resign or to stay in power by using force in my own country and allowing a bloodshed. It is not difficult to imagine the scenarios that the screenwriters or real beneficiaries of this so-called “revolution” would have for Armenia – calling its leader a dictator, labeling us as rogue state etc, would trigger new waves of protests to bring instability to continue pushing for my resignation. These people would be utmost disinterested in the fact that domestic instability seriously increased the external threat level, that it instantly was bringing more escalation on the border and the enemy was ready to seize such opportunities. They could not care less, but even maybe intentionally pursued this goal. But I did care. And took due consideration of all of it,” the RPA head said.

He highlighted that in 2018 his goal was not to cling to power, but to protect Artsakh.

“Our government was standing in the way of all those, whose thinking about Artsakh and the future of Armenia did not match with ours. We did not belong to anyone, we were native and pursued our own national interests – something not in tune with their aspirations. My goal in 2018 was not clinging to power. My goal was to protect Artsakh, and by extension – also Armenia. I was nominated for the position of the Prime Minister only and purely to further strengthen our already strong negotiating positions in the peace process and try to avert the tragedy we are living through today. Wasn’t it clear enough that unfavorable resolution of the Artsakh issue would cost dearly on Armenia too? I was convinced in that and pursuing exactly that, whereas I was accused of desiring to remain in power forever, and did everything possible to remove me.

"These days I am still being asked – why have I not used force against the protesters? I said in the past, and reiterate now: it’s easy to be talking tall retrospectively. It’s genuinely easy to, at first, say that it was due to my decision not to use force in 2018 which allowed for a bloodless transition from that chaos and it was right, and now, witnessing the consequences of that power grab, change hearts and say it was wrong. I assure you all – no foreign actor can achieve any success in your country if it does not have supporters internally, some sort of a Trojan horse to ruin our house from within using our own hands. Unfortunately, there were such players internally, and the deceived public followed their lead.

“Even today and even it’s too late after seeing so many disasters and destruction our society is able to thwart the scenarios of those with distinct geopolitical interests – by standing up to it, by demonstrating its unity and strength in the protection of our national interests. We need to realize that every belated move, each next day takes us closer to a new impending danger.

“Months after the power grab, during the snap parliamentary elections, we were ringing this alarm bell. Almost alone in the beginning and later with a number of other forces we were yelling, crying, proving and begging our people – to sober up and prevent the disaster before it’s too late. You should remember that our slogan at the December 2018 snap parliamentary elections was “If you are concerned about Armenia’s security, about the future of Artsakh – vote for Republican!”. Sadly, the biblical truth was proven right again: “no prophet is welcome in his hometown”. The results of latest elections again testified to the fact that our society had not fully realized the extent of everything that happened in this period,” Sargsyan noted.