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Second Armenian President Robert Kocharyan addressed the surrender of Artsakh (Nagorno-Karabakh) to Azerbaijan at a press conference on Monday, breaking it down into two phases. He stated that the first phase occurred between 2018 and 2020, while the second phase lasted from 2020 until September 2023.

Kocharyan criticized Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan for rejecting the OSCE Minsk Group's proposal for the settlement of the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict in 2019, which led to a deadlock in the negotiation process. He also stated that Pashinyan's statement "Artsakh is Armenia, period!" amounted to a call for war.

He stressed that Pashinyan seemed to be the most fervent advocate of the "not an inch of land" policy among Armenia’s leaders in history.

"Between 2018 and 2020, the Armenian leader acted as though he was a 'Caucasian Rambo' (a hero from action books and films), believing he could do whatever he wanted. But after the war defeat, Rambo who refused to surrender an inch of land turned into a 'geopolitical Gikor' (a peasant boy from Hovhannes Tumanyan’s story),” Kocharyan remarked.

The former president claimed that Pashinyan rejected the peace proposal due to "arrogance, a lack of thorough planning and reckless adventurism".

"There is no other explanation here, while the others are conspiracy theories," he added.