You may sign 8 documents on peace, put 18 pillars, it will not save: the way is military-political balance. Ara Papyan

New demands made by Baku, particularly the dissolution of the Minsk Group, amendment of the RA Constitution, recognition of the Khojaly "genocide", etc., prove one thing: Baku's goal is to eliminate Armenian statehood in general. Political scientist Ara Papyan mentioned this in a conversation with "Detq", stressing that the problem is not the 4 villages in Tavush or the Artsakh issue, they are just a means for Baku to achieve its goal.

"I said years before the Artsakh tragedy that even if we give all of Artsakh, Baku will continue its anti-Armenian activities, because the Artsakh issue was not a goal for it, it was a means, just like the Tavush issue is a means, to destroy Armenia's defense system, cause road problems, etc. Baku does not hide its plans. 96 percent of the respondents in Baku say that Armenia is "Western Azerbaijan" and it should be liberated, what kind of "peace treaty" should you sign with them? Peace comes only through military-political balance, there is no other way. "You may sign 8 documents about peace, put 18 pillars, you want to plant 80 "armor trees", it will not save you," emphasized our interlocutor.

Referring to the movement unfolding in Yerevan, which started in Tavush and stemmed from public dissatisfaction with the border demarcation process, Ara Papyan noted that this movement revealed an important circumstance. it showed that Nikol Pashinyan is neither democratic nor pro-Western, as he tried to present himself since coming to power.

"Those two factors were speculated by Nikol Pashinyan, that, look, I am advantageously different from my predecessors, but now both in the West and in Armenia, naturally, there are those accusations against Nikol, saying, "How pro-Western you are, show me how What step have you taken to the West today, except to speak?' In other words, a pillar on which Nikol Pashinyan built his power is gone today.

The same goes for claims about democracy, which are also false. Democracies do not have police in such numbers and with such funding. Today, the army is in an extremely worse condition than the police. We see that thousands of police officers are kept on the streets of Yerevan for days and weeks at our expense, in the end, we must clearly understand that it is at the expense of us, the taxpayers," said our interlocutor.

According to him, it is encouraging that the people are finally trying to stand up, and how it can be achieved, according to Ara Papyan, there are different ways.

"There are different ways, including going to new extraordinary elections by creating a parliamentary crisis. In other words, if the parliamentary opposition gives up its mandates, the problem of early elections arises. But there is a problem here. if the opposition goes the way of putting down mandates, a problem arises because Nikol Pashinyan is a known law breaker. When he resigned as prime minister in 2020, he continued as acting prime minister, which is illegal because the Constitution clearly states that the government consists of a prime minister, deputy prime ministers and ministers. Therefore, it is more preferable to try the way of demanding Nikol Pashinyan's resignation, so that tomorrow they don't say that they are not clinging to their seats," said Papyan.

Our interlocutor also emphasized that early elections are necessary, because what the government is implementing today completely contradicts the programs with which it participated in the elections and received the votes of the people. "They are deceiving the people. When you look at the promises of the 2021 election campaign and the government's plan, completely different things are being talked about, and now completely different things are being done. Now, if Pashinyan thinks that demarcation should be done by legalizing the Soviet administrative borders and ceding some territories, then he should resign, enter the fight with a new plan, say what he is doing, say that he is giving away the enclaves, say that allows Azerbaijanis to come to Armenia with 300,000 people, and if the people vote for Nikol even after that, then God is with the people. But he must be honest about what he is doing. Instead of saying, "I am secession for the sake of salvation", I bring back Shushi and Hadrut, and then it turns out that the whole of Artsakh is being depopulated, and he himself renounces Artsakh," Ara Papyan summed up.