Armenian PM Pashinyan challenges former presidents to public debate

Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan has once again called on the country’s former presidents — Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan, and Serzh Sargsyan — to face him in a public debate.

Pashinyan made the challenge in a post on his Facebook page, Caliber.Az reports.

“Tell me, all three of you — are you coming to the debate or not?” Pashinyan wrote, addressing the ex-presidents.

Levon Ter-Petrosyan, Robert Kocharyan, and Serzh Sargsyan dominate the political scene in Armenia in the post-Soviet period and have been frequently criticised by Pashinyan and his supporters for alleged corruption, cronyism, and for being part of the entrenched elite. A central point of contention is the 2020 war with Azerbaijan over Karabakh.

Pashinyan blames his predecessors for how negotiations were handled and for leaving Armenia weak diplomatically. Former presidents counter that many of the proposals for resolving the Karabakh question always included some return of the territory to Azerbaijan, under international mediation, and claim Pashinyan oversimplifies or misrepresents the records.

By Khagan Isayev