Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has responded to ex-President Serzh Sargsyan's remarks about the Nagorno-Karabakh settlement process. Sargsyan claimed on Wednesday, April 13 that never negotiated over the resolution of the matter based on the step by step approach.

Sargsyan issued a statement in response to a lengthy speech by the PM, delivered in parliament on Wednesday.

On Thursday, Pashinyan said it wasn't accidental that Sargsyan chose focus on that particular excerpt from his speech. According to him, the change of power in 1998, which forced First President Levon Ter-Petrosyan to resign, was not for the status of Nagorno-Karabakh or saving Karabakh from anything, but for seizing power.

Pashinyan noted that it wasn't accidental either that after the 44-day war, Sargsyan said "I wanted to remain Prime Minister in 2018 to settle the Nagorno-Karabakh conflict." The PM recalled that Saegsyan took to the floor in April 2018 to reveal that negotiations do not inspire optimism, and that Azerbaijan's expectations are unacceptable for the Armenian side.

The Second Karabakh war lasted 44 days and ended when Pashinyan, Russian and Azerbaijani Presidents Vladimir Putin and Ilham Aliyev signed a ceasefire statement on November 9, 2020. Under the deal, the Armenian side returned all the seven regions surrounding Nagorno-Karabakh, having lost a part of Karabakh itself in hostilities.