Prime Minister of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan early Tuesday (local time) took to Facebook to announce the “extremely difficult” decision he had to make in signing an agreement to end the war, as a result of which Artsakh territories, including Shushi will be relinquished to Azerbaijan.
Artsakh President Arayik Harutyuntan followed suit by posting on social media, that after lengthy discussions with Pashinyan, he “gave my consent” in order to avoid more loss of lives.
Below is Pashinyan’s statement.
Dear compatriots, sisters and brothers, I have made a difficult, extremely difficult decision for me, personally, and all of us.
I have signed a declaration with the Presidents of Russia and Azerbaijan on stopping the war starting from 1 a.m. The text of the declaration that has already been published is extremely painful for personally me and for our people.
I made that discussion based on a deep analysis of the military situation and the assessments of the individuals best understanding that situation, also based on the conviction that in the existing situation this is the best possible outcome. I will address the nation in the coming days about all this.
This is not a victory, but there is no defeat as long as you do not think of yourself as defeated. We will never think of ourselves as defeated and this must become the starting point of our national unity, era of revival.
We have to analyze the years of our independence, plan our future for not repeating our mistakes of the past.
I kneel before all our martyrs. I kneel before all our soldiers, officers, generals and volunteers who defended and defend their Motherland sacrificing their lives. They saved the Armenians of Artsakh with their selflessness.
We fought to the end and we will win. Artsakh is standing.
Long live Armenia, Long live Artsakh.
Artsakh President Harutyunyan “gave his consent”:
Today we spent the entire day discussing with the Prime Minister of the Republic of Armenia Nikol Pashinyan our actions aimed at the cessation of hostilities. Before that I had discussions with the National Assembly of the Republic of Artsakh and received the consent of the overwhelming majority of the lawmakers.
Given the current dire situation, in order to avoid further heavy casualties and the complete loss of Artsakh, I gave my consent to end the war as soon as. As for the signed trilateral statement, I will talk about it in detail later.
I extend my deepest condolences and pride to the relatives of our martyrs and to all the people. We will still have time to have a dialogue with the relatives of the fallen heroes and our military about what to do. I pay tribute to all the people who made even a small contribution to the hard work of defending the Homeland.
20 years of complacency and corruption allowed for this to happen. Shame on the leaders of Armenia of the past. Instead of building a strong deterrent military force, they ignored the other side’s obvious military build-up. This one is on us.