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By Harut Sassounian

www.TheCaliforniaCourier.com

The biggest tragedy of Armenians worldwide is that Armenia is ruled by a Prime Minister who is not only incompetent, but also anti-Armenian.

During his interview with Armenia’s Public TV last Saturday, Nikol Pashinyan repeated once again his nonsense about the difference between ‘Real Armenia’ and ‘Historic Armenia.” He even claimed that ‘Historic Armenia’ is the enemy of today’s ‘Real Armenia.’ Just because wars and invasions have shifted Armenia’s boundaries over the centuries, it does not mean that there is no such thing as ‘Historic Armenia.’ Don’t be surprised if one day Pashinyan claims that Armenia has only existed since 2018 when he came to power!

What Pashinyan is trying to do is deprive Armenians of the right to even dream of restoring ‘Historic Armenia,’ someday in the future. He naively thinks that by announcing that Armenia does not have any territorial demands from its neighboring countries, he will be able to convince Azerbaijan to sign a meaningless peace treaty with Armenia. The fact is that Pres. Aliyev has zero interest in signing a peace treaty. On the contrary, he repeatedly threatens to attack Armenia. He describes the Republic of Armenia as ‘Western Azerbaijan,’ demanding the settlement of 300,000 Azerbaijanis in Armenia.

Rather than saying that we have no demands from anyone, Pashinyan should just keep his mouth shut. He should neither say we have demands nor say that we do not have demands. The reason is that Armenia is currently weak and cannot confront militarily its much stronger enemies — Azerbaijan and Turkey. However, it is wrong to declare that we do not have any territorial demands because that would give up Armenians’ right to regain someday their lost territories. To keep that dream alive, Armenia does not need to have a powerful army. It just needs to preserve its historic memory and transmit it to future generations until the day when, due to unexpected circumstances, the opportunity arises to recover what Armenians had lost. If they do not keep the dream alive, even when such an opportunity comes up, Armenians will not be able to take advantage of it because they have voluntarily given up that right.

The best example is what the Jews were able to accomplish after losing their homeland 2,000 years ago. By preserving their dream of “Next Year in Jerusalem” and transmitting it to future generations, they were able to take advantage of the opportunity created in the 20th century to return to their historic homeland.

In his interview on Public TV, Pashinyan stated that no one will sell weapons to Armenia if we keep mentioning Ararat as being our mountain. This is totally false. Saying Ararat or Arakads has nothing to do with acquiring weapons. It has everything to do with knowing how to run a country and a military, and having the funds to pay for the needed weapons. If saying Ararat would have deprived Armenia of obtaining weapons, how did Armenia acquire, before Pashinyan, billions of dollars of weapons which were regrettably captured by Azerbaijan during the 2020 war and are now displayed in Baku?

When Pashinyan was asked about the appropriateness of his riding a bicycle or making an omelet on Facebook, while the country is on the edge of war, he replied: “all the institutions of our country are working even when I am riding a bicycle.”

Pashinyan also excused his constant concessions to Azerbaijan by explaining that he does not want to respond to Azerbaijan’s escalatory rhetoric which is aimed at provoking new hostilities. He does not seem to understand that making concessions to the enemy does not deter war. On the contrary, it increases Aliyev’s appetite to demand more concessions.

When asked about a Diasporan Armenian’s dream to return someday to his ancestral homeland, Pashinyan nonchalantly and insultingly said: “He lives in Australia, wants to return to the birthplace of his grandfathers, let him return. What does that have to do with the Republic of Armenia?” He continued: “Our compatriot lives in Australia, wants to return to the homeland of his grandfathers, which could be anywhere in the world, including Mush, Ardahan, Sis, but for that we should make our soldiers a target? Is that what we want? In other words, we want missiles to fall on our military units at any moment because there are people in Canberra who want to return to the birthplace of their grandfathers, which is Adana. Is this logical?”

In response to a question as to why he has done nothing to secure the release of the Armenian hostages in Baku, Pashinyan replied: “There are superpowers today that have citizens in the same situation in different countries and they are unable to bring them back for years.”
During his meeting with a group of Swiss-Armenians in Zurich las week, Pashinyan raised unnecessary questions about the basic facts of the Armenian Genocide: “We need to also return to the history of the Armenian Genocide. We need to understand what happened and why?” Pashinyan is probably the only Armenian in the world who does not know what happened in 1915. He then continued with a nonsense question: “How is it that in 1939 there was no agenda for the Armenian Genocide? And how is that in 1950 the Armenian Genocide agenda appeared?” Pashinyan does not even know that the term genocide did not exist in 1939. It was coined in the 1940’s by Raphael Lemkin. Until then Armenians referred to the mass murders of 1915 as massacres.

As soon as a new patriotic leader comes to power in Armenia, he should announce that every one of Pashinyan’s orders, laws, statements and agreements are null and void.