"War and peace" theme  becoming  key focus for Pashinyan in his  election campaign

ArmInfo. The theme of "war and peace" is becoming a key focus for Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan in his election campaign for the ruling "Civil Contract" party he leads. "The forces led by Kocharyan, Tsarukyan, and Karapetyan have adopted a policy of revising the peace agreement between Armenia and Azerbaijan, which means they are pursuing the path of opening the door to war," as stated by Pashinyan on Facebook live stream regarding his political rivals' positions.

According to Pashinyan, Robert Kocharyan, Armenia's second president,  Gagik  Tsarukyan leader of the "Prosperous Armenia" party,  and Samvel  Karapetyan, chairman of the "Strong Armenia" party, have recently  been talking about revising this peace, including imposing by force,  thereby making the war inevitable. 

Meanwhile, according to Pashinyan, resuming peace talks means  creating conditions for transforming the content they (the ruling  Civil Contract Party - ed.) have achieved through the negotiation  process.

Pashinyan stated that when these forces say that a peace guarantor is  necessary to achieve real peace, they are effectively opening the  door to the peacekeepers into the region and the country itself. "  And what consequences the activities of peacekeepers have brought  before our eyes, we have all seen it, and the forces leading to stand  on the same rake twice must be unequivocally and irrevocably rejected  (Pashinyan did not specify which peacekeepers he was referring to,  but apparently meant peacekeepers in Artsakh - ed.)."  He reminded  that Armenia had a security guarantor (Russia - ed.), whose  obligations were de jure clearly defined in documents. However,    that mechanism failed to work. Moreover, according to the Armenian  Prime Minister, such mechanisms are completely non-functional.  "History, including the history of the Armenian people, has confirmed  this. Peace between Azerbaijan and Armenia was only established  because we relied not on guarantees, but on ourselves. We considered  it to be our  problem. When we relied on security guarantors and  believed that they would solve our problems, this invariably led to  escalation, aggravation, war, and losses," Pashinyan noted.

Summing up, he emphasized that peace between Armenia and Azerbaijan  was achieved at the cost of heavy losses, but despite this, the  country has reached a new historical milestone. "The survival agenda   has been replaced by the development  agenda. And all those who seek  to revise the peace agenda are trying to push us from a period of  development to the survival period. However, as history shows, when  we are guided by this principle, we survive not in our homeland, not  in our state, but in foreign states," Pashinyan concluded.

Recall, during  a briefing with journalists on March 19, Armenian  Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated that if other forces come to  power, the peace agenda will be revised, which would risk war-with  the risk of losing not only territory but also sovereignty. In other  words, as the Armenian prime minister clarified, they are allegedly  "preparing for a new September war with grave consequences." The  prime minister even specified a timeframe: according to his  estimates, this could happen soon after the elections-by the fall at  the latest. To the clarifying question "why does the opposition need  war?", the Prime Minister noted that in this way these forces will  become the leaders of the outpost (of Russia - Ed.), and not the  state, which is financially beneficial for them, since it will allow  them to preserve their assets abroad."